Loners, Losers, Love, and Other Things That Start With the Letter 'L'
by LeiaHestia
Summary: Michelle Jones is not obsessed with Peter Parker. (She's just very observant.) It doesn't mean anything that she can't stop thinking about him...No! Oh, and Michelle is also pretty sure (say, 67% sure) that Peter is Spider-Man. But that's crazy...right? (Slow) PeterxMichelle, starts at 'Homecoming' and will continue through 'Far From Home'. Full summary inside!
1. Friends?

Summary: Michelle Jones is _not_ obsessed with Peter Parker. No, she's just very observant, that's all. It means absolutely _nothing_ that she can't stop thinking about how stupidly cute his hair looks, or how broad his shoulders suddenly seem (did he start working out?), or how a compliment from him can make her whole day...No! Oh, and on top of everything else, Michelle is also pretty sure (say, 67% sure) that Peter is Spider-Man. But that's crazy...right?

PeterxMichelle (building very slowly! You've been warned), starts at 'Homecoming' and will continue through 'Far From Home'.

**Soundtrack for this fic (**_**The Letter 'L' Soundtrack**_ **on Spotify): **

'So Am I' - Ava Max

'Superheroes' - The Script

'Castle on the Hill' - Ed Sheeran

'Colder' - Nina Nesbitt

* * *

**Chapter 1: Friends?**

_September 17, 2016 (Friday)_

For as long as Michelle could remember (or, at least, _chose _to remember), she had been a loner. And she was fine with that. She was an only child and had never minded being alone. Sometimes, she had people that she could almost call friends - teammates or classmates who were more than acquaintances - but she had never had someone she could consistently call a true friend. Except for, maybe, Peter Parker.

Michelle had a very logical mind, and she preferred her life in black and white. Clear boundaries, logical categories. Peter Parker offered her neither, however, and for that one reason alone she found him extremely irritating.

They were more than acquaintances, obviously, having gone to the same school since kindergarten and having been in the same classes since the sixth grade. And they were more than classmates, because ever since that first class together in sixth grade, they had been rivals, competing for the top academic spot not just in their class but in their entire grade.

So far the tally was 2-2, and if Michelle could win this year, their sophomore year, she would be ahead for the second year in a row. She was going to _crush _Peter Parker.

(It should be clarified, however, that she did not _have a crush_ on Peter, no matter _what_ Betty said. Ridiculous.)

But she was getting off-track. So he wasn't an acquaintance or a classmate, and while she supposed it would be factually true to say they were rivals, that didn't feel quite accurate, either. Flash and Peter were rivals with a completely different dynamic. While her competition with Peter motivated both of them to work ever harder and smarter, Peter and Flash's ongoing vendetta for each other was just...dumb. Stupid. Immature. She could go on, but let's just say that Flash was a bully who would never, couldn't ever, measure up to Peter.

But it didn't feel right to call him a friend. He and Ned were friends, the best of friends. Michelle didn't sit with them at lunch, didn't call them on the phone, didn't goof off with them in the halls. They didn't go to movies after school, or to each other's houses, or have sleepovers. Most of her interactions with Peter were in the classroom, either during school or afterwards in various extracurriculars.

All of this is what Michelle was reflecting on during lunch, staring back at Ned and Peter as intensely as they had just been ogling Liz.

"_Why do you sit with us?"_ Ned had asked. Michelle only shrugged and popped another grape into her mouth.

"I don't have any friends."

* * *

That would've been it, and Michelle would've gone back to mostly ignoring Peter Parker (except, of course, academically). But apparently that wasn't the plan. Peter called out to her later that day, as everyone was leaving chemistry class.

"Michelle, wait up!" She turned on her heel and stared him down.

"What, loser? I have to get to band, even if you don't." He had quit the marching band a few weeks ago, which was odd, but probably for the best. For some reason, Peter in a marching band uniform was very distracting.

"Today at lunch…" he trailed off.

"Yes?" Michelle prompted him impatiently.

"Why did you say that you don't have any friends?" She blinked, legitimately surprised by the question.

"Because I don't." There was no sadness or self-pity in her voice. The sky is blue. Two plus two equals four. Michelle Jones is a loner. But he frowned.

"But -" Peter hesitated, "We're friends, aren't we?"

Michelle opened her mouth -

* * *

_She was five years old, in the park. Sitting under a tree reading a book, a long one, without pictures (Michelle had graduated out of picture books _years _ago, thank you very much). She was just getting to the good part, where the princess is about to be eaten by a dragon and her handsome prince comes to her rescue, when she heard an unwelcome voice above her._

"_Hey, _freak_!" Michelle slowly raised her eyes from her book to see Alexis Montgomery and her posse - two other girls whose names she couldn't remember at the moment - glaring at her. "What is your problem?!"_

_Halfway through the school year, Michelle had pretty much figured out that nothing she said or did would get her into Alexis's good graces. The popular kids seemingly objected to everything about her, whether it be her clothes, her hair, or, as was usually the case, her intelligence._

_In Michelle's mind, this meant that it didn't matter what she said to Alexis, so much so that she usually said nothing at all._

_Which is what she chose to do now._

"Hey!" _Alexis shouted louder when she didn't get a reaction. _If you don't give them a reaction, bullies will usually lose interest, _her mother had advised her when this first started happening. But, like today, Michelle found that it usually didn't work._

"_Why do you always have to be such a show-off in class?!" Alexis shouted now. "'Ooh, yes Ms. Roberts, I know some Italian, my aunt lives in Italy,'" she mocked in a poor imitation of Michelle. "No one cares! You think you're better than us 'cause you're smart, but guess what? No one likes you, and you'll never have any friends." Alexis and her sidekicks were disappearing behind a blurry curtain as tears clouded her vision, though she was desperately trying not to cry. That last remark really hit home; although her parents had promised her she would meet lots of new friends in Kindergarten, four months into the school year Michelle didn't have a single person she could play and have fun with. She was seconds away from losing it and decking Alexis - or, worse, breaking down crying in front of her - when a new voice interrupted their conversation._

"_Hey." Four heads swiveled to look at the small boy suddenly near them. Michelle quickly wiped her eyes on her sleeve before anyone else could see. "What's wrong with being smart?" Alexis stared back at him blankly. "My uncle always says, 'Being smart is like having a superpower. There's nothing you can't accomplish if you just use your brain.'" All four girls were still staring at him, not sure what to make of this precocious boy who spoke to Alexis so boldly. After a moment, Alexis huffed, annoyed that someone had interrupted her fun, and flounced away, her lackeys close on her heels. Michelle squinted at the boy in perplexment. She meant to say thank you, or compliment him on standing up to Alexis, or ask who his uncle was. But instead she asked,_

"_Are you a prince? Or," she said suddenly, struck with a new idea after what he had said, "are you a superhero?" The boy looked equally thoughtful._

"_I don't think so," he said after a moment. "I'm Peter Parker."_

* * *

_She was seven years old, and she and Peter were walking home from the bus stop to have a play-date at his house. Michelle was hopping over all of the cracks in the sidewalk, careful not to touch a single one. Peter, in contrast, was trudging glumly beside her. _

"_What's wrong?" she asked him, wondering what he could be upset about. Mr. Metz had complimented both of them in class that day, praising Michelle's spelling skills and Peter's math skills, they were having a play-date, _and _it was Friday. Days could hardly get better than this, Michelle decided._

_But Peter's shoulders managed to slump even further. "It's Parent's Day next week at school, and I don't have any that can come," he admitted. Michelle's brow furrowed. When they had first met, she had assumed that Peter was someone who simply didn't have any parents, like how some kids at school, herself included, didn't have any brothers or sisters. But everyone had parents at one point, she discovered later, and though she didn't quite comprehend what death was, she understood that Peter couldn't be with his parents anymore._

"_You can share my parents," she offered, "They're going to Parent's Day, and they're really nice." Peter made an odd face._

"_Thanks, Michelle, but that's not really the same." And it really wasn't, Michelle knew that much. She hummed thoughtfully as she jumped over another crack._

"_What about Ben and May?" she suggested finally. "They're not your parents, but they're your family. And you live with them, and they love you." Peter brightened now._

"_That's a good idea! But do you think it'll be allowed? Since it's not the same as regular parents?" Michelle shrugged._

"_I don't know. But May and Ben will. Let's go ask!" The elder Parkers were, Michelle had decided early on, some of the smartest people she knew. Peter grinned._

"_Race ya home!"_

* * *

_Michelle was 10 years old, and running for her life from Eugene "Flash" Thompson, who was making good on his promise to beat her up if she didn't let him copy from her on this week's math test. _Evidently, _Michelle thought as she rounded the next street corner, _nobody had ever taught him that boys weren't supposed to hit girls. _She was almost out of breath and out of options when, like a ghost, _he _appeared. Peter Parker. They had sort of mutually stopped being friends at the beginning of the year, when talk of crushes and kissing and 'going with' people had made it too hard for a boy and a girl to stay friends, especially when that boy and girl were already misfits. _

_But he was here. And while Michelle was still struggling to get her breath back, he was rounding on Flash, confronting him._

"_What is wrong with you!?" he snarled, a stark contrast to his normal mild-mannered personality. As Michelle watched in slight disbelief, Flash raised an eyebrow mockingly, enjoying this new development. _

"_Defending your girlfriend, Penis Parker?" Michelle silently scoffed at the insult. Only Flash would think that that was a cleverly cutting nickname. Meanwhile, Peter flushed an even deeper red than she'd thought previously possible. "What are you gonna do, Parker? Huh, huh?"_

_Michelle gasped as Peter's fist connected with Flash's face, and then gasped again at the two swears that followed: one from Flash, his nose dripping blood, and one from Peter, who was cradling his injured hand._

Barbaric, _the principal said later when the three of them were in her office. _Misguided, _May suggested more gently. _Chivalrous, _Owen exclaimed, clapping a hand on Peter's shoulder despite May's stern look. Michelle had a different word for it, though. _

Heroic.

* * *

_Michelle was 12 years old, and glaring at the substitute teacher who was trying to force Peter to read a newspaper article to the class. Peter hadn't spoken a word to anyone for 4 months and 12 days, ever since Ben's death. Not even to May. And if he couldn't speak for May, he sure wasn't going to speak for this ignorant, self-centered, close-minded man. She raised her hand._

"_Miss Jones, I don't recall asking for your, I'm sure, invaluable opinion on this matter," he sneered. Michelle straightened even while hearing a few of her classmates - those that still thought that being smart was something to be ridiculed for - snigger under their breath. She fixed Mr. Dwight with the stare that had already made her one of the top debate champions in the region. _

"_I was just wondering if you were aware that harassing a student with a medical condition is grounds for review by the school board? Sir." He stared at her, nonplussed, and it felt to her like the entire class was holding its breath. After what felt like an eternity, he cleared his throat and turned back to the board._

"_Okay, well, Mr...Garver!" Michael Garver jumped, having been too caught up in the drama to pay attention. "Read the third article to the class, please."_

_Michelle didn't hear a word of the article. For the first time in four months and twelve days, Peter Parker was smiling. And he was smiling at _her.

* * *

"We're friends, aren't we?" Michelle had been set to say no, but ten years of memories stopped her in her tracks and startled her into honesty.

"I don't know." Peter blinked, and Michelle did, too. She shrugged and traced a floor tile with her toe, ducking her head as her cheeks warmed. "I don't know," she repeated. "Are we friends? I'm nothing like Ned." Ned, who was a loyal and true friend to Peter ever since they had met in eighth grade, at age thirteen. Ned, who was the first person Peter had talked to (at school, at least) after nearly a year of silence. And though it had hurt at the time, Michelle figured now that it had probably been easier for Peter to start over with Ned, someone who didn't know his past and his baggage and who Peter could have a clean slate of friendship with. Jealousy or hurt aside, Michelle had been so glad to see Peter talking and smiling and laughing again, that it didn't really matter who had brought him out of mind. Much.

In the present, Peter was chuckling.

"One Ned is enough, I think," he said in reply, and Michelle snickered too, in

spite of herself. "Besides," he continued, looking at her with the same dark brown eyes she had known for years, "Who said all friendships had to be alike?" He smiled, and that was the same, too. "Friends?" The same smile that he had worn through their elementary school adventures, the same smile that he had found again as the trauma of Ben's death had begun to fade, the same smile he wore every time they had competed against each other for the past year.

And out of those memories, Michelle nodded.

"Friends."

* * *

A/N: _AHHH, _how could they take Tom Holland's Peter Parker out of the MCU? I watched _Homecoming _for Zendaya but stayed for Tom Holland! Those two are the reason I became a Marvel fan..

One thing I found really interesting: When I was deciding what insults Alexa might use in this chapter, I came across an opinion article that America has a rare culture of insulting smart people. Here it is if you'd like to go check it out!

. /opinion/2018/05/15/commentary/world-commentary/america-one-cultures-insults-smart-people/#.XWtA7ShKjZv

Thanks so much for reading; I hope you'll be back for chapter 2!


	2. Friends

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, guys! It's about half the length of the first, but that's just how the 'rhythm' of it worked out, if that makes sense. I've written some future chapters and they are longer, promise!

Thanks so much to my supporters: upwiththebirds33, primalfreak, jentley72, Jyheim582, Jedibeta19, KosaAskari, Lupita-Resendez, Snag1, Redskye22, Bmanthebeast15, and a guest named Damien. You're all awesome!

Damien, since I can't reply privately: I was incredibly flattered that you felt like you were watching a movie while reading this fic; that's so cool!

**Soundtrack:**

Airplanes - B.o.B, Hayley Williams

Starving - Hailee Steinfeld, Grey, Zedd

* * *

**Chapter 2: Friends.**

_The next Monday afternoon (September 20,2016)_

Michelle was doing homework at her kitchen table when her mother came home.

"Hi, honey!" Claire Jones had darker skin and hair than she did, but nobody was ever in doubt that they were related. She put down the groceries she was carrying and turned to her daughter. "How was your day?"

"Good," Michelle replied distractedly, immersed in her report on the Black Dahlia Murder. The case was dark, mysterious, and gruesome - right up Michelle's alley, but also a perfect topic for her history report.

"Really?" Her mother raised an eyebrow. Normally she was lucky to get a grunt or a 'Fine' when she asked Michelle about school. "What was good about it?"

* * *

_Michelle scowled inwardly as she stood with her lunch tray, hating how paralyzed with indecision she was. She could do this. It was just lunch. But what if Peter had changed his mind over the weekend? Or what if Ned didn't want her to sit with them?_

_Well, she would never find out just standing there. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and walked over to their table. _

"_Hey," she nodded in what she hoped what was a casual way to Peter and Ned. "Okay if I join you?"_

_Peter looked surprised, then pleased, while Ned just looked...surprised. But when Peter smiled and replied,_

"_Of course!", Ned smiled, too. "We were just debating about who would win in a fight," Peter continued, "A great white shark or a killer whale." Michelle snorted. How had they even got on that topic? And what's more - _

"_A giant squid would win against either of them, _obviously." _Ned blinked._

"_But a great white's only predators are humans, killer whales, sperm whales, and larger sharks?" _

"_Yeah, but," Peter broke in, "I just read an article that great whites are actually ocean sharks that migrate to the coast, instead of coastal sharks that travel to deep waters." Michelle nodded._

"_Yes! That's what I read, too, and scientists concluded that great whites must prey on the giant squid in Hawaiian waters, just as sperm whales do." _

"_That article only talked about the sharks eating the squid, though, not the other way around," Peter pointed out. Michelle scowled._

"_Come on, giant squids are _badass!" _she exclaimed, waving her fork in the air, now totally relaxed. Peter looked amused. "They're the largest invertebrates in the world! Unlike sharks, they're ambush predators who wait for their prey to appear. And they release ink to help them escape danger! So little is known about them; the only facts we have come from dead squid that wash up on the beaches. Giant squid are like the _spies _of the deep!" Ned looked thoughtful._

"_You know, I hate to say it, Peter, but I think I'm with Michelle on this one. Giant squids for the win!" Peter groaned good-naturedly as Michelle stuck her tongue out at him._

"_Real mature, Michelle. Real mature."_

* * *

And then they moved on from the sharks and squids to Flash's latest dumb YouTube video (not that any of them would _ever_ admit to Flash that they had watched it), and then from _that _to Mr. Harrington's latest scheme to get his students to enjoy calculus. And before Michelle knew it, the bell was ringing and lunch was over, and Peter was promising to _destroy _her in next period's chemistry test.

But her mom was still waiting for an answer, and she wasn't going to explain all that. So she just shrugged,

"Peter and I are friends again. It's nice." Her mother's brow furrowed.

"Weren't you already friends?" Michelle shrugged again.

"Maybe. But Peter makes things complicated." And if her mother thought that maybe it was _Michelle_ who was making things complicated, she had the grace not to say so.

"Well, I'm glad you're having a better time at school, dear," she said instead. "How does pizza sound for dinner?"

"Sounds good," Michelle murmured, once again distracted by her work. "Oh, wait, Mom?"

"Yes?"  
"Can Peter come over after school on Wednesday to work on physics?" To her surprise (because she had always liked Peter), her mother frowned. But that wasn't the problem.

"_No explosions_," she said firmly to Michelle. "No, I mean it," she continued, cutting Michelle off when she made to protest. "You are getting to the level where I'm seriously worried about you totaling the car or blowing up the house with your science experiments." Michelle bit down hard on the urge to roll her eyes.

"I'm much more careful now! And the project we're working on is only theoretical stuff. No experiments." _Yet, _she added silently. "Plus," she continued, "Peter is even better with physics and chemistry than I am." Which was annoyingly true, though Michelle would go to her grave before she told him so. Her mother held up her hands in defeat.

"I don't object to you working together. I just want to come home to you, and the house, still in one piece." Michelle nodded vigorously.

"We'll be suuuper careful. No explosions."

Once her mother had left the room, she grumbled to herself, "Jeez, blow up _one _teensy supply shed when you were nine and they never let you forget it."

"I heard that!" her mother called back to her. Michelle jumped and bit back a curse. "And let's not forget about that time a couple of years ago with the inflatable -"

"_Moooom! _I thought we agreed to never talk about that again!"

* * *

A/N 2: Here are my decidedly unreliable sources for giant squid/great white information, if you're interested:

_ news/great-whites-vs-giant-squids_

_ facts/animals/giant_squid_facts/113/_

That was fun to research. :)

Thanks for tuning in! I think I'm going to try to update every Sunday, so I promise you chapter 3 next week!


	3. The List

A/N: Sooo...yeah, this chapter isn't much longer than last week's, but, in my opinion, it's at least a little more interesting!

Also, I made/am making a soundtrack for this fic; I'm going to list the specific songs for each chapter, but I also made a Spotify playlist (_The Letter 'L' Soundtrack)_ with all of the songs in order, in theory updated as I post new chapters. I went back and added the songs for chapters 1 and 2.

My favorite Spider-Man fic that I've read to date is 'The Double Life of Peter Parker' by CuriousNymph, and - well, first of all, you should definitely go read it! After you read this, that is!

(If you're reading this, CuriousNymph - any chance of a Part 3?)

The reason I bring it up, though, is because the author made soundtrack suggestions for their chapters, and I really liked that idea! Some of the songs I chose are ones that I listened to while writing, songs that inspired future chapters, or songs that simply seemed to fit the atmosphere of the scene.

A huge thank you to my new supporters: AC139, Black Hearts24, TheMCAvenger13, and Oneshot Agency, and of course my old supporters!

**Soundtrack:**

Talk - Khalid

Jealous - Nick Jonas

The Listening - Lights

Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter 3: The List**

_September 23, 2016 (Wednesday)_

Though she attempted to reflect on it later, Michelle couldn't exactly pinpoint when she started to associate Peter with Spider-Man. She did remember the day in late September when she walked into study hall and caught Peter watching him videos on YouTube.

"Dude, seriously?" she sniggered as he jumped, slapped the laptop shut, and flushed deep red. "Don't tell me you _also _watch that spider-guy?"

"Spider-_Man_," he corrected her before he could stop himself. Michelle snickered again, and he rolled his eyes. "Hey, Spider-Man is cool! And lots of people watch him. I should be more surprised that you _don't_!" Michelle shrugged.  
"I never follow trends. Never have." Peter opened the laptop again to the paused Spider-Man video.

"What do you think of him, though?" Michelle was already in her own world thinking about her unfinished math homework and could only blink.

"Who?" Peter sighed.

"Spider-Man."

"Oh." Michelle paused thoughtfully.

"I'm not sure I _do _think. About Spider-Man. Though, I don't know. He _is _kind of heroic." Peter brightened.

"You think he's a hero?"

"Sure." Michelle shrugged. "You know, in a small-town kind of way." And then she had to bite back a grin at Peter's poorly-hidden scowl.

* * *

After that day, though, Michelle did begin to pay closer attention to the enigma that people were calling "Queens' Own Colorful Local Crime-Stopper", in no small part because Peter and Ned seemed obsessed with him.

If there was a difficult thing about being friends with Peter and Ned, it was riding out their fan-girling moods whenever they got really _into _something. That was okay, considering that in return they put up with her random mood swings and her habit of recounting dark, gruesome trivia during lunch. But there was one thing that Peter and Ned talked about seemingly _constantly _that Michelle found hard to deal with: Peter's crush on Liz Toomes.

Michelle liked Liz. She was the captain of the Decathlon Team and had always been kind to Michelle, though she had never done anything in particular to merit that kindness. And Liz never overlooked her and her talents, though she was easily swallowed up by the louder, more vocal members of the team.

But.

Whenever Peter and Ned started dissecting everything Liz had ever said, did, or had been rumored to do, _Michelle _continued working on a very peculiar list: 'Reasons Why Liz and Peter Would Never Work As a Couple'.

_Too old for him, too young for her _had been one of the first reasons. Okay, two years wasn't _that _big of a difference, but maturity-wise, she and her friends were leagues behind Liz, who was already looking towards college and an independent, adult life.

_Quit all of his extra-curriculars_ was one that she had added after Peter had stopped going to marching band and robotics lab. Liz was, in contrast, the captain of the Decathlon team and about a jillion other clubs.

_Too much of a dork for her_ was one she added guiltily, because Peter was a good guy and, frankly, Michelle herself could be an even bigger nerd than he and Ned sometimes. But she could never envision normal, perfect Liz sitting at their lunch table and debating about something like deep-sea battles, so it went on the list.

Liz sitting with Peter at lunch was something she really didn't like thinking about.

_Not smart enough for him_ was added after hearing Liz cry to her friends about a failing grade on a chemistry test, thought it was one she felt pretty petty about. Considering the aforementioned jillion clubs, it made sense that she couldn't get perfect grades all of the time. Even though Peter still managed it, despite his Stark Internship thing.

Wait. Come to think of it, could she really consider herself 'ahead' in their academic rivalry if Peter was also splitting his time between school and the internship? The playing field wasn't quite...fair. Ugh, that was _another _thing she didn't feel like thinking about.

Moving on.

_Can't talk to her like a normal person_ also went on the list. Though she would never admit it, Michelle loved the occasional romance novel, and one thing they all seemed to agree on was that friendships made for the best relationships. But that would never happen if Peter couldn't just loosen up and talk to her.

The list went on for longer than Michelle cared to admit. Peter deserved to be happy with someone he liked, and she was a bad friend for cutting him down (even if it was only in her head). Why did she even care?

"Hey, Mom?" she asked her mother one day when they were driving home from their volunteer shift at the local women's shelter, "Did you ever feel weird when… when your friends started paying a lot of attention to other people?" Her mother frowned.

"Are your friends ignoring you at school? I thought things were going well?"

"No, nothing like that," Michelle said hastily, already regretting starting this conversation. "School is fine. My friends are fine. I was just curious."

"Well, then," her mother said thoughtfully, "I might know what you mean. Though, usually, when I was bothered by one of my friends talking to other people, it was when a guy I had a crush on talking to another girl." Seeing Michelle avert her eyes and attempt to hide her blush, Claire gasped. "Do you have a crush?! Is it Peter?"

"No!" Her mother blinked.

"Ned?" Michelle blanched.

"Mom! No way!"

"So it _is _Peter," her mother exclaimed smugly.

"_Mom._ Stop!"

"My baby has a _crush!_ Oh, you should ask him out a date!" Michelle slumped down into her seat, folding her arms.

"Mom. There is no crush, no date. We are friends, and that's it."

"If you say so, dear." Michelle didn't have to look at her mom to know she was still smiling. Ugh.

"You didn't answer my question," Michelle reminded her after a moment. "I don't have a crush, so why do I feel weird when...my friends are making a big deal about someone else?"

"Well," her mother began gently, "I know your friendship with Peter and Ned is...somewhat new, isn't it?" Michelle nodded. "So, are you maybe afraid that if they make a new friend, that they'll have less time for you, or you'll be left out?" Michelle was thoughtful. The thought of being abandoned by Peter or even Ned was surprisingly painful, and in her most insecure moments her mind would urge her to get out. _Leave now, _a part of her subconscious would whisper, _leave now before they leave you_. But she knew, deep down, that Peter and Ned both were too good to do something like that, and though she hadn't been unhappy before, she didn't want to go back to the way things had been.

However. If Liz and Peter started dating...well, Peter would never abandon his other friends. And Liz wouldn't ever force him to abandon them in order to have Peter all to herself. But they _would_ want some time alone together, as couples do, and given how busy Peter already was with the Stark internship his time with them would become even more limited. So she nodded.

"Maybe that's it." Her mother smiled reassuringly.

"It's perfectly normal to feel that way when your friends start meeting new people. But branching out is healthy, and sometimes you find you can be one big, cohesive group. Or, not all of your friends are mutual friends with each other, and that's okay, too. Not everyone can be included in everything, all of the time."

"So…" Michelle hesitated, reluctant to ask this next question, "I'm not a bad person for feeling this way?"

"Oh, _no_, honey!" her mother replied emphatically. "This is a normal part of growing up, forming close relationships, and meeting new people." Michelle folded her arms again and scowled.

"Well, it's hard. And it kind of sucks." Her mother burst out laughing.

"You know that nothing in life worth having is easy, Michelle."

It didn't really explain the List, or her feelings about it. But Michelle felt better about the whole thing, anyway.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for tuning it! Liked it? Hated it? Think my soundtrack suggestions are great/utter crap? Have constructive criticism or ideas about future chapters? I'd love to hear all of it!

Til next week!


	4. Emergency

A/N: Sorry I missed my normal update yesterday! I just had too much work to get done.

Also, I recently realized that I screwed up my timeline, guys. I wrote this chapter before I realized that Liz's party was the same day as the gym class scene in _Homecoming_, but I'm just going to take a bit of creative license and pretend that it's actually the day _after_, okay? Cool, thanks.

Thank you to all of my current supporters, as well as my new supporters: Andrei Rian, Earlygirl1998, PhiDragon7502, The Glassman, Daisyrogers4, EmmALewisS, Voirtex, miaisabeljoy, and that1dude317. I hope you all enjoy!

**Soundtrack:**

85% - Loote, gnash

When You Love Someone - James TW

Madness - Muse

Memories - Maroon 5

**Chapter 4: Emergency**

_September 30, 2016 (Thursday)_

Michelle was absent-mindedly pressing her copy of _Of Human Bondage_ under the guise of weightlifting (it had weight, she had argued to Coach Wilson, and therefore could totally be used instead of weights. He relented rather than waste energy arguing with her) when she heard it.

"- F Thor , marry Iron Man, and kill Hulk," Betty was saying to Liz, Seymour, and Jason on the bleachers."

"Well, what about the Spider-Man?"

"It's just Spider-Man," Liz immediately moved to correct Seymour.

Michelle smirked and mentally added _Already gave her heart to Spider-Man_ to her List, though by now her mood was more amused than stressed.

"Peter knows Spider-Man!"

Though Liz and Peter were somewhat similar in that regard, she thought, inwardly sniggering. They could bond over their love for - Wait, _what _did Ned just say?

She barely registered Peter's weak reply and Flash's mocking comments. With all of Peter and Ned's conversations about Spider-Man, how had this never come up?

* * *

She was still asking Peter that question a few hours later, sitting in his apartment after school, badgering him.

"I don't know, Michelle!" he exploded suddenly, fed up with the whole thing, startling her. "I don't really know him that well, okay? We met through Mr. Stark and that's it."

"Okay," Michelle replied, taken aback. "Sorry. I'll drop it." Peter sighed and ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end more than usual. Michelle was momentarily distracted. He had really nice hair. Wait, what?

"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you." He sighed again. "It's just that Ned told everyone that he's gonna come, and...I don't know. He probably has better things to do than show up at some high school party, you know?" Michelle nodded. That made sense.

"What's he like?" she asked suddenly, making Peter look back up at her. "Like, I know you said you don't know him super well, but, you know, physically. Is he human? Is he old, like Betty said?" Peter gave her a serious look.

"I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Top secret." His tone was so serious, she felt her eyes widen in surprise. Then, he grinned. "Had you going there, didn't I?" Michelle smacked him with a couch pillow.

"Jerk!" He laughed and dodged out of the way.

"Kidding! I'm kidding." He suddenly looked vaguely guilty. "I don't actually know. I've never seen him without the suit."

"Oh." She was surprised at her own (minor, but still existent) disappointment. Did she really care who Spider-Man was? Well, she always did love a good mystery. Though even if Peter _did _know anything about the superhero's identity, secret agent act aside, he probably _would_ have to keep it under wraps. Oh, well.

"Are you going to Liz's party?" he asked suddenly, changing the topic. She shrugged.

"Probably," she said vaguely. It wasn't really her scene, but Liz had invited the whole Decathlon team. And Peter and Ned were going to be there, so she'd definitely have people to talk to. Though she was beginning to feel more comfortable around her Decathlon teammates, too (Flash not included, obviously). "Why?" Peter half-shrugged.

"Just curious." Michelle was kind of tempted to ask more questions about Spider-Man, but she got the feeling that she shouldn't push that topic any more today. So they worked in more-or-less silence until Peter cleared his throat.

"Hey, Michelle?"

"Hmm?" she replied distractedly as she sketched a graph for her math homework.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" Michelle blinked.

"Sure, I guess." Peter looked unusually uncomfortable.

"Well, I was wondering…" he trailed off.

"Spit it out, loser," she said, shading in tiny graphing squares, though there was no bite or malice in her voice anymore. He didn't reply, and Michelle was about to change the subject when Peter finally blurted,

"What exactly happened to your father?"

Michelle froze.

* * *

"_9-1-1, what is your emergency?" Michelle sat stock still in terror with the house phone pressed to her ear, unable to move or say anything. "Hello? This is 9-1-1 emergency services...Is anyone there?"_

"_We need help," she whispered finally. "My mom needs help."_

"_Okay, don't worry," the calm, soothing voice of the woman on the other end replied. "What's going on?"_

"_My mom and dad are fighting, and my dad, my dad's going crazy," she managed to say, fighting back tears, "We live at 707 Jackson Avenue, in Queens. Please send someone." She gasped as lightning flashed, thunder crashed, and glass shattered downstairs. "Please, hurry!"_

"_Help is on the way," the 9-101 operator said. "What's your name?"_

"_M-Michelle," she wiped futilely at the tears streaming down her cheeks._

"_Okay, Michelle, and how old are you?"_

"_Twelve." _

"_Are you in a safe place, away from your parents?"_

"_Yes." She was wedged on the top shelf inside of the upstairs linen closet, which was only just tall enough to fit her. If things went badly, her father probably wouldn't think to look for her here._

"_Do you know if your father has a weapon?"_

"_No."_

"_No, he doesn't have a weapon, or no, you don't know if he does?"_

"_He doesn't, I mean, I don't think he has a gun or anything, but I'm not sure." _

"_Has he been drinking?"_

"_Drinking what?"_

"_Alcohol, like beer for example? Do you know if he's drunk?"_

"_I don't think he's drunk," she replied, though she wasn't certain what that would look like. _

"_Do you know if he's hit your mother before?" Michelle choked back a sob. "Michelle?"_

"_I think maybe he has," she admitted, "But I've never seen it."_

"_Has he ever hit _you_?" She blanched._

"_No!" She didn't hear the dispatcher's reply. Things had gone suddenly quiet, nearly silent, in fact, except for her mother's sobs and her own loud breathing. This didn't reassure Michelle in the least, quite the opposite, in fact. _

"_Hello?"_

"_I'm still here." Michelle replied, sandwiching the phone between her ear and her shoulder as she climbed down from her hiding spot. "I don't hear anything now. I don't know what's happening. I'm going downstairs," she said, though her heart was pounding so loud she thought maybe the dispatcher could hear it. _

"_No, no. Stay where you are. The police are only 2 minutes away from your location."_

_Indeed, Michelle could hear sirens approaching. And then, her father bellowed in a voice so loud she swore she could feel it in her bones:_

"MICHELLE! _YOU CALLED THE POLICE? HOW COULD YOU?" Michelle pressed herself against the closet wall, shivering and wishing she hadn't left her hiding place. She gasped in fear as she heard her father's feet on the stairs._

"_Don't you hurt Michelle!" That was her mother, shouting now, "I won't let you!" Michelle then heard a huge _BOOM _followed by loud voices:_

"_Police! Hands behind your back, sir! Don't move!"_

"_No!" her father shouted, sounding suddenly panicked and scared. "Michelle! MJ, baby, come and tell them I didn't mean any of it!" Michelle gasped and burst into a new round of tears, crying nearly silently, but she didn't move._

"_No, Michelle!" her mother shouted back, "Stay there. Stay right there, honey!" Michelle stayed. She heard the police take her father out (she thought?) and then everything went very quiet again._

"_Michelle?" A new, unexpected voice, in the hallway. "It's okay to come out now. You're safe from your father." Michelle didn't move, feeling paralyzed again. Why didn't her mother come up? _

"_Mom!" she shouted, feeling increasingly panicked. _

"_It's okay, Michelle! Everything's okay. You can come down now." Michelle turned the doorknob and opened the door a crack, peeking outside. A young female officer, who must've called to her earlier, saw her and smiled reassuringly._

"_Come on out. It's all over now." Michelle stepped out tentatively into the hallway._

"_Is my mom okay?" _Please be okay, _she prayed. _

"_She...she has some injuries, but minor ones," the officer replied as Michelle gasped. "I think she should heal just fine." It was a much better (and much more honest) answer than Michelle had hoped for or expected. _

"_What will happen to my dad?" she asked as they descended down the stairs. The police officer frowned, but replied neutrally, "I'm not certain. It depends on a lot of things." _Like what? _Michelle wanted to ask, but stopped short as they reached the first floor and she caught sight of her mother. _

"_Mom!" she gasped. Claire was being strapped to a stretcher by a couple of paramedics. She still managed a tired smile for her daughter._

"_It's just a precaution, honey," she said, and Michelle couldn't tell if she was lying or not._

"_I wanna come with you!" she begged fiercely, but her mother shook her head 'no'. _

"_Go stay with the Parkers for the night," she said instead, and though Michelle had figured her mother would need more than just a quick visit, her heart still skipped a beat at the thought she might be in for a longer hospital stay. Michelle squeezed her mom's hand as she kissed her daughter on the forehead, and then she followed a different police officer to his squad car. It was only a short drive up the street to Peter's house, and Michelle's throat tightened as she watched the officer ring the Parker's bell while she waited in the car. It would only be one night (she hoped), but she felt bad for imposing on them at all when they were still trying to get their lives together, so soon after Owen's death. She needn't have worried, though. May Parker would take in all of Queens if only she had the space. She gave Michelle a warm smile and invited her inside, though there was a sadness in her eyes that hadn't been present a couple of months earlier. She hugged Michelle tightly, who suddenly had to blink back tears again. _

"_Thank you so much for letting me stay," she whispered, and May ruffled her hair._

"_It's no trouble at all, dear. And, maybe, we can go see your mom tomorrow." Michelle just nodded, not trusting herself to speak without crying._

"_You'll sleep on Peter's top bunk for tonight, is that okay? I'll just let him know that you're here." Michelle stood outside the door with her backpack while May went into Peter's room. She could hear May talking softly, and after a moment she invited her in. As it was the middle of the night, Peter was in pajamas, hair wildly messy and still blinking sleep out of his eyes. May turned back to Michelle._

"_Well, try to get some sleep, okay, sweetheart? And don't hesitate to wake me if you have any problems, okay?" Michelle nodded._

"_Thanks, again." May smiled at the two children._

"_Goodnight, you two." She closed the door, and Michelle was left alone with Peter, who was gazing at her silently. She was at a loss for what to say next. Given the circumstances, she wasn't sure she would know what to say even if Peter was his regular, non-mute self. _

"_So, um," she began quietly, twisting the hem of her shirt in her hands, "Sorry for crashing your room. It was kind of, well, an emergency." Peter just nodded, but his brown eyes were wide with concern. She shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. "So, uh, I'll just go change quick, then," she suggested, jerking her head towards Peter's bathroom. He nodded again. Michelle was grateful that he wasn't going to ask her any questions about what happened tonight, and then she felt guilty for feeling that way. She wondered how much May had told Peter about why she was here. Michelle ducked into the bathroom to change into the pajamas she had brought, the routine achingly familiar from when she and Peter used to sleepover at each other's houses, seemingly every weekend. His room hadn't changed much in 3 years, she thought absently, gathering up her clothes and wincing at her frizzy-haired and tearstained reflection in the bathroom mirror. Michelle stifled a gasp when she walked back into Peter's room and found him standing right outside the door. _

"_Peter! Jeez, you scared me, I-" she broke off abruptly as Peter wrapped his arms around her in a hug that seemed to last a short eternity. When he let go, Michelle had to hold back tears and swallow the lump in her throat for the umpteenth time that night. _

"_Thanks," she whispered, and Peter simply nodded before crawling back into his bed. "Goodnight," she added before switching off the light and carefully climbing up the ladder to the top bunk. Soon she heard Peter's deep, slow breathing beneath her and knew he'd fallen back asleep, but Michelle could only stare at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, unable to turn off her brain, and she lay awake for a long time._

* * *

"Michelle?" She was jerked back to the present by Peter's voice, who was looking at her in a way that was both concerned and guilty. How long had she been staring into space? "I'm sorry," Peter continued, "I shouldn't have asked, forget it-"

"It's okay," Michelle interrupted, but she couldn't bring herself to say any more. A part of her wanted to confide the whole, ugly story to Peter...but it was like someone else was holding on to her vocal cords. She cleared her throat. "I...I don't really feel like talking about it. Yet." _Yet? Okay then._ And, unsurprisingly, Peter accepted her answer.

"Of course," he said. And to her relief, they went back to doing homework. She had thought the silence would've been awkward after that, but somehow it wasn't. Michelle's shoulders slowly came out of a protective hunch she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. And she was seriously considering telling Peter the story anyway - that's how comfortable she was - when Peter's aunt came home.

"Peter?"

"In here, May," he called out. "Michelle's here, too."

"Oh, hello, Michelle!"

"Hello, Mrs. Parker!" Peter's guardian came through into the kitchen and fixed Michelle with a mock-stern look.

"What was that?" Michelle couldn't help but smile.

"Hello, May," she corrected.

"That's more like it!" She went to help May bring in her groceries, which were surprisingly heavy for a two-person family - evidently Peter had entered the eat-them-out-of-house-and-home phase her mother claimed all teenagers went through. "Oh, thank you, dear! You see that, Peter, Michelle helps with the groceries without being asked!" Peter gave Michelle a mildly annoyed look, which she answered with a smirk. "Why don't you stay for dinner, Michelle?" May asked.

"Oh, that's very nice," she began, "But it's getting kind of late and I wouldn't want to impose-"

"Good, so you'll stay for dinner!" May finished triumphantly. "We're having spaghetti." She gave Peter a startled look, and that jerk just laughed.

"You brought this on yourself, you know," he teased, with much more mirth in his eyes than the situation called for. "Next time, you shouldn't be such a helpful guest!" She tried to scowl at him, but found herself rolling her eyes instead, unable to stop the faint smile appearing on her face.

"I'll just call my mom, then, so she knows where I am," she said, grabbing her phone ("Give her my best!" May shouted from the next room). As she typed in her house number she heard Peter yell behind her,

"Hey, May! Michelle's a vegetarian, remember? So don't force her to eat any of your meatballs!"

"Peter, since when do I ever force anyone to eat anything? And you should think real carefully before answering that!" Michelle stifled a laugh as she waited for her mother to pick up. Under the humor, though, was...something else. Peter had remembered she was vegetarian, which was such a tiny thing, but...it felt really nice. (Even though, when she brought it up during dinner, all Peter said was, 'It would be hard to forget that traumatic time when you forced me to try vegetarian bacon', while pretending to shudder.)

That jerk.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for tuning in! I'll try my best to update on time for the next chapter; have a great week, everyone!


	5. The Party

A/N: Guess what, my lovelies? Maybe you've already heard - Spider-Man is back in the MCU! As a newer Marvel fan, Tom Holland's Peter Parker is the one I know and love best. (Not to mention Michelle, who we've only just gotten more of in _Far From Home!_) Phew!

Thank you so much to all of my supporters, especially new supporters: Alysscassandra, LoveandEdify, Tgm102, fryer, gamePsycho11, naruto king of demon, and DeaNo22.

I hope you enjoy!

**Soundtrack:**

The Underground - Hardwell, Timmy Trumpet

DJ Got Us Fallin' In Love - Usher, Pitbull

Sucker - Jonas Brothers

Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO, Lauren Bennett, GoonRock

Taki Taki - DJ Snake, Selena Gomez, Ozuna, Cardi B

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Party**

_October 1, 2016 (Friday)_

Michelle closed her eyes and massaged her temples. Coming to Liz's party had been a mistake. She was so far out of her element, she would've been outside of the current periodic table. Sure, Liz was happy to see her, and she had said hello to a few Decathlon teammates, but Peter and Ned weren't there yet, and she was extremely uncomfortable.

She should have just gotten a ride with them, but her mother had some sort of work function that night and Liz's house was on the way. Actually, she was kind of surprised that Ned hadn't dragged Peter here yet; Ned was ridiculously excited that Spider-Man was apparently going to stop by the party.

Peter seemed like he doubted it, and Michelle privately agreed. Surely Spider-Man had better things to do than show up at a high school party?

Anyway, they weren't here yet, and - Wait, how on Earth was _Flash _DJ-ing? She could see it if it were one of his own parties, or one of his cronies', but at Liz's party? Liz was more kind and patient than Michelle could ever be, but this was stretching it a little.

Then again, she thought as she wriggled through the mass of gyrating bodies in the vain hope of finding a somewhat empty space, there were so many people here - maybe Liz couldn't hear Flash's awful commentary? However, she immediately rejected that idea as she winced for what was surely the seventh time in fifteen minutes. The ear-splitting klaxon alarm would be hard for Liz to miss.

Michelle sighed, then figured she may as well find something to drink while she was waiting. She turned around the way she'd come and promptly smacked into a warm body.

"Sorry!" she shouted over the pounding bass before she even saw the person she'd smacked into: Betty Brant, the co-news anchor for Midtown Tech, and Liz's best friend. Betty was bouncing to the music and didn't seem to mind in the slightest that Michelle had nearly run her down.

"Hey, Michelle!" she shouted into her ear, and Michelle flinched. "Great party, huh?"

"It's okay," Michelle shouted back, before realizing that maybe she should be a bit more complimentary about a party Liz was hosting. But Betty just smiled and rolled her eyes, long used to Michelle's general blase attitude towards life.

"I'm gonna find something to drink! Wanna come?" she yelled to Betty, though she wasn't sure why she asked. Betty nodded, and together they elbowed their way towards the kitchen. Finally, the two girls emerged into the brightly lit kitchen, a sharp contrast to the dim lighting on the makeshift 'dance floor'.

"Phew!" Betty wiped her forehead. "It's wild in there." Michelle just nodded, popping her soda tab and handing a sealed can to Betty, who eyed her curiously.

"If you don't mind me saying so, I'm surprised to see you here. This doesn't seem like your scene," she said to Michelle, who laughed.

"_I'm_ surprised I'm here," she admitted to Betty, who laughed herself. Michelle shrugged. "I don't know," she said vaguely, snapping off her soda tab and playing with it. "Liz and I are friends, and she invited everyone from Decathlon, and…" Michelle shrugged a second time. "I guess I was curious," she said finally. Betty gestured out in front of them; from the kitchen door they had a decent wide-view of the majority of the party action.

"And your conclusion?" Michelle stared out at the mass of gyrating bodies.

"I'm not hard-wired for this," she replied. "I can't dance, it's too loud…"

"It's a party!" Betty raised her eyebrows. Michelle nodded.

"Exactly!" Betty laughed again, and the two girls paused to drink their sodas. "Hey," Betty said suddenly, "You're good friends with Ned Leeds, aren't you?" Michelle nodded. She would consider Peter her best friend, but she and Ned were pretty good friends, too.

"Sure." Betty shifted from foot to foot, suddenly looking hesitant.

"Do you think you could...introduce us sometime?" Michelle blinked in confusion.

"You and Ned know each other," she pointed out, before she took in Betty's red face and averted eyes. "Wait, you mean...you _like_ Ned?" she said in disbelief. Betty blushed even deeper.

"Ned's really cute!" she said defensively, and Michelle shook her head. Ned was great, but he was..._Ned! _Well, to each her own, she supposed.

"I guess because we're friends I don't really...think of him that way," she told Betty, who seemed to have recovered from her embarrassment. Ned was almost like a cousin to her, really. Betty nodded.

"Like you and Peter," she said, and Michelle frowned. What did that mean? "Peter's not really my type, you know," Betty continued, and Michelle's eyes widened in horror. "But, you know, he's certainly good-looking in a certain way, and really nice-"

"I don't like Peter," Michelle cut off Betty before she could say any more. She raised her eyebrows at Michelle, who rushed to say, "I mean, we're good friends, obviously, so I like him in, like, that friendship-way. But not like, like, romantic interest…" she trailed off in frustration, because she was babbling like a fool, and if Betty's eyebrows were any higher they would reach escape velocity off of her face. And, naturally, that was the moment Peter and Ned finally arrived.

Michelle stared. Peter was standing next to Ned (who, by the way, was wearing the most ridiculous hat Michelle had seen in a while, though it was oddly suited to him), and, like herself and most of the other kids at the party, he was dressed similarly to how he was at school. Why, then, couldn't she tear her eyes away? Peter looked just the same as he had literally every single day this school year. He smiled at her, and Michelle felt her entire body warm.

Next to her, Betty snorted, and Michelle jumped, having forgotten she was there.

"No romantic interest, huh?" she said, cutting her eyes at Peter. Michelle opened her mouth to reply, but before she could think of anything to say, Betty ditched her soda can and went to rejoin the masses.

"Wait, I thought you wanted me to introduce you?" Michelle blurted when she finally got her brain back. Without turning around, Betty waved a vague hand back at her.

"Later!" she shouted. "I'm being summoned!" Liz and a few others were indeed trying to grab Betty's attention. Michelle sighed, and then Peter and Ned were suddenly right in front of her.

"I can't believe you guys are at this lame party," she said the first random thing that popped into her head. The boys' brows furrowed in confusion.

"You're here, too," Ned pointed out. Michelle raised an eyebrow.

"Really? Am I?" She inwardly smirked at the boys' baffled expressions as she took a bite of her toast. She loved confusing people.

* * *

Ned had immediately pulled Peter aside to talk about...something, so Michelle once again roamed the party for a few minutes. She said hello to a few more people and did her best to avoid Flash, who had mercifully taken a break from DJ-ing. Once she felt an appropriate amount of time passed, she sought the boys out again - if nothing else, she could say Ned's hat made him easy to spot. When she got to him, though, she realized Peter was ahead of them, slipping discreetly outside.

"Where's he going?" she demanded rudely. Ned stuttered out a non-answer, and Michelle cut him off: "I'm going after him."

"No, you can't!" Ned blurted out, finally coherent, and he grabbed her arm to stop her. What the hell was going on? Michelle looked for a way out and grinned when she spotted Betty coming towards them.

"Betty!" she beamed. "Ned was just saying he needed a dance partner!"

"I do?" Ned said in surprise as Michelle shoved him toward Betty.

"Be right back!" she shouted to them, and dashed out before Ned could try and stop her again. She weaved and wriggled through a mass of people, upsetting only one person's drink before she burst through Liz's front door. She wasn't sure why she felt it was so important to find Peter right now - it just _was_.

But Liz's front yard was completely deserted, but for a few of her friend's cars in the driveway and a couple of lonely birds that hadn't gone to bed yet. _The backyard, then._ She jogged around to the back of the house, then stopped in disbelief. _Empty. _

She spun 360 degrees around, sure she'd see Peter jogging away in some direction - but there was nothing. Michelle shook her head, and the night air sent a chill down her spine. There was nowhere he could be, unless he'd gotten into a car and driven away - but why would he do that? May had dropped he and Ned off not half an hour earlier!

She heard a rustle behind her and whirled around, heart pounding. But she was quite alone in Liz's backyard, and now sufficiently creeped out. Now facing the back of Liz's house, she turned to go inside - and paused. _The roof. _Okay, so there actually _was_ a logical place for Peter to be (well, logical compared to him being driven off someplace, that is). It even made sense when you considered that the guy could climb trees like a monkey - getting up to the roof would be no sweat.

She squinted up at the top of the roof, wishing it was lighter out. She couldn't see anything clearly in the falling darkness. A part of her was tempted - very tempted - to climb up onto the roof and check it out.

Michelle sighed. She was a good climber, but not as good as Peter, and making the trek in the dark would just be plain stupid. Not to mention, what would she say if Liz or someone else came to see what she was doing? _Oh, Peter disappeared from the party, and I was just checking to see if he'd been abducted by aliens, or something. _She snorted.

Michelle may have had an eccentric and aloof image to maintain, but even that would probably be taking it a bit far. Deciding that she couldn't do anything about this mystery at the present, she turned on her heel and went back inside.

* * *

Inside, Michelle roamed aimlessly, not searching out anyone in particular. She would've joined Ned, but he looked stressed and anxious about something, and brushed her off when she'd asked about it.

Again coming across the large group of dancing kids, she was surprised to see Betty standing off to the side, looking somewhat aggravated.

"Not dancing?" Michelle asked her when she got near enough. Betty frowned.

"Ned ditched me," she pouted. "He said he had to take care of something." Michelle couldn't imagine what that could possibly be, but decided to leave it for the moment.

"He seems really stressed about something," she said as a sort of half-apology. An idea struck her. "Maybe you could join us at lunch sometimes," she offered. "It'd probably be a better time to get to know Ned…" she trailed off. She didn't know if Betty would be up for joining them, but she looked interested.

"Yeah? You don't think they would mind?" Michelle thought that them getting the local loner to join them for lunch spoke volumes, but she digressed.

"They're actually pretty outgoing and friendly in more individual settings," she said. "It's at stuff like this where we get overwhelmed." Betty smiled.

"Well, thanks, Michelle. I just might take you up on that some time." She sounded like she meant it, too.

Suddenly, the music switched to a new, up-tempo song, and Betty beamed. "I love this song!" She grabbed Michelle by her hands and pulled her to the 'dance floor'. "Come on, let's dance!" Michelle flinched and yanked her hands away.

"Betty, no!" she protested. "I can't dance, I don't know how - and everyone will be watching - and -"

"No one will be watching," Betty promised, taking her hands again. "You don't need to _know_ how to dance - hardly anyone here does." Michelle stayed frozen, rooted to the spot.

"You listen to the music, and move along with it," Betty instructed, dancing for Michelle. When she still didn't move, Betty said, "Close your eyes."

"But -"

"Just do it!" Betty insisted. Michelle sighed. Though she didn't know why, she obeyed.

"Now what?"

"Listen to the music." Michelle did.

"And then?"

"Now you just move how you feel." _Move how you feel? _Michelle didn't know what that meant at first. She was being bumped into from all directions and couldn't stop feeling claustrophobic.

When the chorus played again, though, she started to get it. More relaxed now that she realized that everyone else was dancing and that nobody would be paying attention to her, she bounced and swayed, waving arms as she'd seen other kids do.

"Now you've got it!" Betty exclaimed from somewhere behind her. Michelle opened her eyes, and Betty grabbed her and spun her around. She couldn't stop the grin that erupted on her face.

Maybe there was something to this party thing, after all.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading! I love hearing from all of you :)


	6. Off' Switch

A/N: It's that time of the week again! Thank you to all of my newest supporters: Corvokuro, Elizabeth357, . .yuppp (love the username, by the way!), Sage Biju, and Thinkofallthestoriesyoullhave (another lovely username!),nico2883, xXNifflerxX, and everyone who has previously tuned in to this story.

**Alyssacassandra: **Your review made my day! I love when readers enjoy my story, but I love even more when they're specific about something I'm doing well. :) Thank you!

**Soundtrack:**

I'm a Mess - Bebe Rexha

I Write Sins Not Tragedies - Panic! At The Disco

Don't Let Me Down - The Chainsmokers, Daya

Supermassive Black Hole - Muse

In Your Arms - ILLENIUM, X Ambassadors

* * *

**Chapter 6: 'Off' Switch**

_October 9, 2016 (Saturday)_

Sometimes, Michelle hated her brain.

Well, no, okay, that wasn't true. She loved being smart; she was proud of it, and while she didn't flaunt it, she never tried to hide it, either.

And she loved to learn, loved math and science (obviously), but she also just loved to learn for the sake of learning something.

Every now and then, though (and lately, more and more often), Michelle wished her brain had an off switch. It was just so _loud_ in her head, except for the peace she could always find in books (and, occasionally, music). She felt it was yet another thing that set her apart from her peers. Sure, they all went to the same school for gifted STEM students and were all quite advanced by most people's standards, but it seemed like everyone else was able to...let go. Turn off their thoughts and just let loose, with their friends, on field trips, at parties. Michelle could never do that, could never stop analyzing the world around her.

She had been proud of that, too. She was never blindsided by pop quizzes, usually having seen them coming for several days. When she listened to gossip (which wasn't often, mind you, so don't go getting the wrong idea), she was never surprised to hear that so-and-so cheated on what's-her-face with you-know who. She knew which kids did drugs, which kids were cheating on tests, which ones came from a bad home. Michelle saw it all, and so was never caught unaware by life.

That was the idea, anyway. And it had served her pretty well thus far, that is until relatively recently.

And it was all Peter Parker's fault. (Okay, and Ned's, too). It really was.

Right around the time Michelle had started to join the pair at lunch, she quickly noticed the whispering, the private conversations that would abruptly halt as soon as she (or anyone else, for that matter) came within earshot, and a seemingly endless argument between the two where Ned would be visibly insisting on something and Peter would shake him off. It wasn't about Liz, who they continued to talk about openly in front of her (_Number 27: Liz's 7-month relationship with a handsome college student from out of state only added to her maturity and experience, while Michelle was almost certain Peter had never even kissed a girl before. Not that she had, either. Kissed anyone, that is. You know what? Never mind.)_

Anyway. It was beginning to drive her up the wall. Maybe it wouldn't have if she was still a loner, but she wasn't. She was friends with Peter and Ned, and they did a lot together. They ate together, studied together, went to each other's houses...she had even watched a _Star Wars_ movie marathon with them one weekend (7 movies later, it was at least 14 hours of her life that she was never getting back. _Never again._)

The point was, they shared enough stuff that Michelle was beginning to feel more than a little annoyed that she was out of the loop.

Oh, and the excuses! It wasn't like she hadn't tried asking (well, once she admitted defeat and decided that her observational powers wouldn't be enough this time. And wasn't _that _aggravating). Actually, it had been kind of fun at first, seeing what new bullshit Peter and/or Ned would come up with, very entertaining:

"Oh, we were just debating the fine points of our latest English novel!"

"Gone? No, I was here, I was just late because...um, because, my robotics project started malfunctioning and, you know, there was a lot of clean-up to do…"

"No, Peter can't make it, he, uhhh, he's taking a tap dancing class and he doesn't want anyone to know about it."

Tap dancing. _Tap dancing._And everyone knew Peter wasn't even _in _Robotics Lab anymore. Did they think she was stupid?

Though Michelle was beginning to privately worry that she _was_ stupid, or at least out of her mind. Because she was thinking about all of this instead of being present, on the bus, on the way to the Decathlon Nationals. She needed to focus. She could worry about Peter and Ned later.

"1922," she replied to latest question Liz was quizzing her on. Liz's bright smile and her "Correct! Very nice, Michelle!" made her feel a bit better, but not much. She'd just gotten lucky that Liz had asked an easy question when she snapped out of her musings. Michelle pretended to shove everything she had ever thought about Peter into a box, lock that box, and then put it in a mental filing cabinet.

Peter Parker's double life was just going to have to wait.

* * *

_October 10, 2016 (Sunday)_

Michelle was going to _kill him_. Peter. First he quit the Decathlon, then he re-joined the next day, only to utterly ditch them at the final stage of the competition?

Sure, Ned said he was sick, but he sure had seemed fine the last time Michelle had seen him, shoveling down third helpings at dinner earlier that night. Although, it _was_ surprising he hadn't joined the rest of the team in the pool. Peter turning down an opportunity to see Liz in a bikini? No freakin' way.

(_Number 34: Would Peter even have time to date a girl, if he somehow couldn't make any time for his regular friends and classmates?_)

But _ugh, _with Peter gone, Flash was the alternate, and not only did that mean that everyone had to put up with his incessant bragging and posturing, but it really put them at a disadvantage in the competition. Flash would never be as smart as Peter - in her opinion, nobody was, not even Liz.

_Ding!_

Why would he even come on the trip if he was just going to ditch?

"Midtown Tech?"

Michelle had always loved mysteries, and she was beginning to think that she would never find a better one than Peter.

"Zero."

Wait, what just happened? Why was everyone hugging her?

* * *

"Oh, I'm so proud of you, honey!" Two hundred and fifty miles apart, there was no missing the warmth and affection in her mother's voice, even through the phone.

"Thanks, Mom!"

"Winning the whole competition for your team, that's really something!"

"Well," Michelle began, she wasn't sure she'd put it quite like that…

"No, no, honey. Don't minimize it. Just enjoy it and be proud, okay?" Michelle smiled.

"Sure, okay."

"Good. Are you having fun overall, with your teammates and your friends?" She shrugged, though her mom couldn't see it.

"Yeah, overall. The team is going up into the Washington Monument right now, but since, you know…"

"Right," her mother replied. Michelle had given Mr. Harrington the 'slavery excuse' (Which technically wasn't a lie, maybe. The skilled and educated builders who physically built the Monument probably weren't slaves, but the labor used to mine the material probably would have) but the truth was she was absolutely _terrified _of elevators. She wouldn't say it was claustrophobia, because she didn't have problems with other confined spaces. Only elevators. Usually, it wasn't too much of a problem; every place had stairs and she got a little bit of exercise at the same time. However, the stairs to the top of the Washington Monument had been closed forty-odd years ago, so Michelle was out of luck. Or so she thought.

During the conversation she had been staring idly at the top of the Monument, and - Michelle blinked and squinted - what was going on up there?

"Mom," she cut in quickly, "Mom, I gotta go, something weird's happening at the top of the Monument."

"What? What do you mean by 'weird'?"

"I gotta go, bye Mom love you talk to you later," Michelle rushed out in one breath.

"Michelle-" _Beep. _She was going to be in trouble for that later, but there were more important things to consider.

At the same moment _Spider-Man_ suddenly appeared in front of her (yes, _really_), a huge tremor had passed underneath them and shaken the Monument.

"No, no, no! Karen, what's going on up there?" Michelle wondered if she had fallen asleep while reading and started dreaming right where her life had left off (it had happened before). Because why else would _Spider-Man_, who everyone knew frequented Queens, be here in Washington? How did he know there could be an emergency? _Was _there an emergency? And who was Karen?

As more people began to shout and point at the Monument, Michelle felt her throat close up. Ned, Liz, and her other teammates were up there! _Please be a dream,_ she prayed, but she knew without having to pinch herself that this was real. She leapt to her feet.

"My friends are up there!" Spider-Man whirled around, and she was momentarily taken aback by his huge, alien eyes.

"_What? _Uh, don't worry, ma'am, everything's going to be okay." _Ma'am?_ She was fifteen years old, for Pete's sake! But she didn't have much time to think about that, because he - Spider-Man - sprinted through the gathering crowd like he was on fire. Michelle gaped as he leaped what must have been at least a couple hundred feet up the Monument, then stuck to its surface like he was one of those sticky window-cling toys. He then began to crawl the rest of the way up the monument, like a monkey. _Or a Spider-Monkey_, Michelle thought with a hysterical laugh, because this was really just too intense. She absently hit 'Ignore' on her phone for the third time, unwilling to take her eyes off the scene in front of her. Shielding her eyes from the sun's glare and squinting at the Monument, she could only just make out the tiny figure that was Spider-Man. The crowd around the building's base gasped as he _jumped sideways_ from one wall of the Monument to its adjoining wall, barely losing any height. Michelle shook her head in amazement. She could sort of understand Peter and Ned's obsession with the hero, just then - Who _was _this guy?

The crowd murmured disquietly as Spider-Man reached a window, but then seemed to freeze. Michelle frowned. What was he waiting for? She flinched at the crowd's loud,

"_Oooh!_", as Spider-Man suddenly sprung away, only to land again on the window. He was...he…

"He's trying to break a window!" she shouted to no one in particular. Michelle bit her lip. She had read that the Monument's windows were made of ballistic glass four inches thick - would he have the strength to get inside?

She wondered anxiously which, if any, of her teammates had made it out. She wondered who was still inside. She wondered -

"Look!" someone nearby exclaimed, pointing up at the sky. The crowd exploded into frenzied chatter when they realized that a police helicopter was making its way towards Spider-Man. Michelle didn't share their excitement. She was much too far away to hear what (if anything) was being said, but she did know that the police weren't helping anyone - helping her _friends_ \- by hovering next to the building, or by distracting the masked hero from getting inside.

Michelle considered herself a stoic person, but she couldn't stop the scream that escaped her as she saw Spider-Man, now on the very tip of the Monument, throw himself off, extend his arms as though they were wings, soar down _around_ the helicopter - Michelle held her breath - and finally hit the window with enough force to finally break inside. The crowd cheered, but Michelle didn't feel safe to celebrate yet. If she needed a reminder how dire the situation was, fire trucks and ambulances were screaming into the parking lot.

It wasn't until she saw Ned, Liz, and the rest of the team emerge from the building - terrified, crying, and covered in dirt and plaster but otherwise safe and unharmed, that she could sit down, legs still trembling, and take some deep breaths. Thank God. _Thank God. _

And speaking of otherworldly beings, what had happened to Spider-Man? Michelle was still scanning the area for him as she answered her phone.

"Hello?" she said faintly.

"_Michelle Kathleen Jones!_"

Oh, _shit_.

* * *

That night, Michelle stared at the ceiling as she tried in vain to fall asleep. This trip had been exhausting even without most of the Decathlon team almost falling to their deaths, but there was just too much to think about, and too many emotions to untangle.

_Guilt. _Michelle still squirmed at the memory of her phone conversation with her mom after all of the action was over - it wasn't like she never got in trouble, but hearing the fear underneath the anger in her mother's voice was one thing that was keeping her up. (Though her mom had mostly forgiven her by the time she had squeezed her daughter half to death later that evening).

_Fear._ If Michelle thought before that it would be difficult to overcome her elevator phobia, it was _nothing_ compared to how she felt about them now.

_Shame. _At how relieved she felt when she had realized, staring at the top of the Washington Monument, that at least Peter wasn't one of her friends who was trapped.

(She imagined it was similar to her mother's relief that she hadn't been inside the Monument, but still).

_Confusion._The same questions she had pondered during the event - why was Spider-Man here? How did he know to be there? And who was Karen? And, (and these next questions she didn't think of until after everything had happened) why did Spider-Man seem so familiar, and why did he seem to care so much when Michelle had told him her friends were trapped in the building - as though they were more important than any other random victims?

Actually, Michelle had a few ideas about the first three. The major national news outlets were nervously speculating about a terrorist attack - she supposed a hero like Spider-Man might have secret intel the rest of the population wasn't privy to, especially if he was an Avenger. And if he _was _an Avenger, maybe he had been communicating with another person on the team - the mysterious Karen?

Michelle scowled inwardly and rolled over in bed, punching her pillow. There was nothing she could do about any of this tonight. The guilt and fear would fade in time (probably), and she may never get answers to any of her questions. She certainly didn't need to be obsessing over any of it when she had school the next day.

Gradually, her eyes begin to close and her breathing slowed. The noise in her head became more muted, though images of the past day still scrolled through her brain like a projector.

..._the ground vibrated underneath her feet…_

_...a police helicopter knifed through the sky…_

Michelle was in that state between awake and asleep, drifting in between…

_...Spider-Man looked at her with those odd, huge eyes…_

_...he leapt off the building's tip and soared around the helicopter…_

…"_Don't worry, Ma'am, everything's going to be okay,"..._

Michelle suddenly jerked as though she'd been falling, now wide-awake and alert. And she laughed. Somehow, in her head, just before she dropped into sleep, Spider-Man's voice had sounded exactly like..._Peter's_. She mentally rolled her eyes and lay back down.

Although…

Peter hadn't been in the Monument with the others, having once again gone missing. And he lived in Queens, just like Spider-Man did..._No._

No?

No, Michelle decided firmly, that was just crazy. Peter Parker and Spider-Man couldn't be the same person - people weren't sure if he was even human! And Peter was…

Peter was…

Well, he was wonderful and nice, a great friend, and even, in certain circumstances, heroic. But heroic in the _normal_ way, not in the otherworldly way. Peter was just...Peter.

And with that, Michelle was finally able to close her eyes and get some sleep.

* * *

A/N: Oh, Michelle, darling. You _know _what you know!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, everyone! Happy Sunday!


	7. Spider-Man

A/N: Wasn't sure I would make it, but (for me, at least) it's still Sunday! Also, Far From Home recently came out to stream, so now I can start procras- that is, watching it in my free time and planning some events for future chapters. Yes.

*Disclaimer: I do not speak Italian, so the line Italian dialogue in this chapter comes from my knowledge of the similar _French _language structure and a decent English-Italian dictionary. Apologies for any mistakes!

Thank you so much to all of my current supporters, and to my newest supporters: Crow In The Mist, Manuelcards, , acrimony1029341, cabrera1234, Helios897, and ImmortalMyrddin!

WerewolfLover and AlyssaCassandra: Thank you so much for your reviews! I'm glad you loved my last chapter and hope you'll enjoy this one, too. :) Your feedback really makes my day!

**Soundtrack:**

Butterflies - Zendaya

Take On Me - a-ha

Demons - Imagine Dragons

She's Not Me - Zara Larson

**Chapter 7: Spider-Man**

_October 11, 2016 (Monday)_

The next morning, Michelle stared off into space while absently stirring her cereal with a spoon. She'd had one of the worst kinds of sleep, where when you wake up you feel as though only a few minutes have passed. In the light of day, the idea that Peter could be Spider-Man seemed even less likely than it had the night before. Ludicrous. Preposterous. Fantastic. (Fantastic as in _fantasy_, not as in _wonderful_.)

So, why was she still thinking about it? Michelle analyzed and unraveled little mysteries all the time, and if she got a lead that went nowhere, she dropped it.

And, honestly, this..._whatever_ it was, this thing, it wasn't even a lead. It was an idea. Or a feeling. Or something. Michelle stabbed at her cereal more aggressively.

"Are you going to eat your breakfast or just murder it?" Michelle jumped at her mother's teasing question, not having noticed her come in. (And that was another annoying thing about Peter/Spider-Man - she spent so much time thinking and analyzing he/them that her normally keen observational awareness suffered) She obediently put a spoonful in her mouth and made a face; her obliterated cereal was, unsurprisingly, very soggy at this point.

"Mom, do you ever _know _something but can't prove how you know it? Or, I guess, not knowing something, but suspect it? And you can't explain why?"

"Oh, sure, all the time," her mother replied while putting a bagel in the toaster. "A gut feeling, they call it. Don't I always tell you to 'go with your gut?'" Michelle suppressed a scowl.

"Yes. But that never made sense to me." Her mother laughed lightly.

"Oh, I know, honey. You've always been very literal, black-and-white." Now Michelle did scowl, and Claire backpedaled a bit.

"I don't mean it in a bad way! But some things are really more of a grey area. Like people," she added, seemingly as an afterthought, and Michelle did a mental double-take. Her mom had always had that uncanny mind-reading ability that all moms seem to have, and though Michelle was quite closed-off to the rest of the world, her mother could always read her like an open-book. But she would have no reason to connect Peter and Spider-Man together, so how would she…?

But Michelle glanced at her mother and realized that wasn't it at all. Claire had the tiniest of smirks on her face, and Michelle mentally rolled her eyes. This wasn't the Peter-Spider-Man thing, this was the Peter-_crush_ thing again. Jeez.

"Mom, it's not that," she complained, and her mother's smirk grew wider.

"If you say so, honey," she replied airily, smearing her bagel with cream cheese. Michelle resisted the urge to throw up her hands. They had just had a similar conversation yesterday (after the 'Don't hang up on me during potentially life-threatening emergencies' conversation, that is), when Michelle had told her all about the rest of the weekend.

"_You've only mentioned his name about sixteen times," her mother exclaimed. "You don't talk about anyone else nearly that much!" Michelle had thrown her hands up, then._

"_Because he's a good friend! And he ditched us this weekend, when we needed him!"_

"_When _you _needed him," her mother corrected her, smiling. Michelle folded her arms across her chest. _

"_Clearly _I _didn't need him," she had said, smiling proudly, "since Liz and I led Midtown to victory!"_

Michelle didn't really want to repeat that conversation. She tried a new tactic.

"Even if I liked Peter that way - which I don't," she added quickly as her mother began to smirk again, "He's all hung up on Liz. He'd never think of me that way." (_Number 40: Peter wasn't exactly in Liz's good books after he hung them out to dry that weekend._)

"Well, anyway," her mother said, thankfully dropping the subject (_for now_), "My point is there are many times in life, when you interact with people and you just a certain feeling about them. Or even in situations not related to people," she said thoughtfully, "You know, even in my line of work - very scientific, very calculated and factual - when something goes wrong during surgery and there's no clear reason why, the science can't help you. You have to make a split-second decision, and you go with your instincts." Michelle blinked.

"That's terrifying," she said honestly, and her mom laughed.

"It certainly can be," she admitted, "That's why we work as a team. More brains to analyze and more hearts to feel."

"More hands to heal," Michelle quipped, and her mother smiled and rolled her eyes.

"Go to school," she said.

Michelle went to school, and thought about what her mother had said the whole way there. Tabling the 'grey area' part for the moment, she thought about the other points. _Instincts._ Michelle supposed that would apply to when she had heard Spider-Man's voice, and in the moment, it had sounded exactly like Peter's.

But, could she trust that instinct? It had become very loud as the crowd had gathered underneath the monument, she had been panicking about her friends...no, Michelle couldn't take that moment as any proof.

_Teamwork. _Michelle tried to imagine telling someone else that Peter might be Spider-Man, and inwardly cringed. No way. And who would she even tell? Ned, probably, but he hero-worshiped Spider-Man so much that there was no way he would agree with her that it could be Peter. Not to mention that, in order to observe Peter to try and catch him being Spider-Man, they would have to keep it a secret from him, which Ned would never do. Nope. Obviously she couldn't tell Peter. Betty? She had started joining them for lunch sometimes, and as an investigative reporter would actually be a great asset to a mystery like this. However, they still didn't know each other that well, and the fact remained that this idea was absolutely crazy.

Although, it occurred to her a few moments later, that if she had started to suspect Spider-Man's secret identity, surely others had. Not necessarily their classmates, because they had their own stuff to worry about...but she could think of a few people Peter might tell. Such as Ned and his Aunt May.

_The science can't help you. _Michelle scowled at this one. Science had never failed her! And qualitative observations were still science, albeit not the kind she usually worked with. Obviously, she needed more data.

When the train arrived at her stop, she strode off purposefully. _Look out, Peter,_ she thought, _I'll figure out what's going on with you if it's the last thing I do._

* * *

Unfortunately for Michelle, there was an immediate crimp in that plan, and for once it wasn't even Peter's fault.

Midtown Tech ran on a block schedule, which meant that the student's classes alternated every other day, and, as (bad) luck would have it, Peter wasn't in any of them.

Although, actually, it was nice to take a break from all of this analyzing and over-analyzing. Clear her mind a little. She was not obsessed and wouldn't become as such. But, even without Peter to distract her, the day dragged on. Starting Monday with Physics always sucked, but Michelle still couldn't wake herself up for History afterwards, though it was one of her favorite classes.

When lunch finally rolled around, Michelle was ready to rest her head on the table and take a nap, and the boys didn't look much different. Ned looked oddly stressed, and Peter looked like he could fall asleep standing up. (_Because he climbed the Washington Monument yesterday?_) a tiny voice in her head whispered. She mentally squashed it with a hammer.

"Long morning?" she asked instead. Ned manufactured a put-upon expression.

"Fame tires out a guy," he said loftily, and Michelle threw a fry at him. All of the kids who had been in the elevator when the Monument had been damaged had become school celebrities, with all of their other classmates clamoring to know what happened.

"Flash doesn't seem to have the same problem," Peter said moodily, jerking his head to a corner of the cafeteria, where Flash was holding court, several students holding onto his every word. "The way he talks about it, you'd think he saved you guys himself instead of budging past other people and trying to save the stupid trophy." Ned smiled sympathetically, and Michelle could only stare at both of them.

Peter hadn't been in the elevator (_unless he really had, as someone else_), but Ned could have told him what happened (_unless he didn't need to_). What would happen, she thought suddenly, if, right here, she point-blank asked Peter if he was Spider-Man?

She never found out, because the entire cafeteria was silenced by a girl's shouting:

"Oh, shut the fuck up, Flash!" The three of them (along with everyone else in the room) turned to gape at Liz Allen, who standing over Flash, fists and jaw clenched, absolutely _furious_. Michelle couldn't remember the last time she had seen Liz yell at someone, or swear, or even get angry. But if looks could kill, Flash would be a puddle of goo (and what a shame that he wasn't). "Just shut up!" Liz continued heatedly, "We almost died up there, don't you realize that? So show a little humility, because if it weren't for Spider-Man, we wouldn't be alive today!" And with that, the older girl turned on her heel and stalked out of the cafeteria, her eyes blazing and her hair streaming behind her.

_Wow,_ Michelle mouthed, unable to say anything after that performance, and as the silenced cafeteria returned to a more normal volume she was pleased to see that Flash had a dazed look on his face.

"She almost fell to her death," Ned confided to them quietly when she turned back around. "She was the last one waiting to get out, and she fell, and...Spider-Man shot silk at her and saved her."

"I didn't know that," Michelle said softly. The three of them didn't say much after that. What was there to say?

* * *

Later that same day, in her Italian class, Michelle had an awful thought. Suppose, disregarding the insanity of the idea, that Peter really _was _Spider-Man. If he was, then her List (currently forty-two Reasons long) didn't mean squat. Peter Parker may not be in Liz's league, but _Spider-Man_ sure as hell was!

But, wait! Why did she even care? _Because of the reasons Mom and I talked about before, _she thought desperately. _Because if they date, Peter will have less time for us, and things will change…_

_Because you like him! _a louder inner voice out-shouted her rational one. The room suddenly felt too hot. _You think he's good-looking! You want to date him!_ No, she did not! He was a friend -

_-Your best friend! _her mind shouted at her. _A friend who could be your boyfriend!_

_No!_ Michelle thought furiously, actually clenching her fists and squeezing her eyes shut. That couldn't happen, she was a loner-

_Not anymore…_

She couldn't, _wouldn't,_ be that vulnerable, no, she refused -

_You don't get a choice!_

"_Signorina Jones?" _That would be her Italian teacher, _Signor _Marino, interrupting her train(wreck) of thought (and Michelle suspected it wasn't the first time he had asked). "_Che cosa è la riposta di la domanda numero cinque, per favore?_"* Michelle stared blankly at him, then at the board, then back at him.

"_I have to go to the bathroom,_" she choked out instead in Italian, and rushed out of the room.

* * *

In the hallway, just outside of the classroom, Michelle put her head in her hands. What was wrong with her?

_Nothing,_ her quickly-hated inner voice said snidely. _Plenty of teenage girls have crushes on boys. _But she wasn't like most teenage girls! Michelle strode around the corner, suddenly unable to stay still (and she should probably head for the bathroom, just in case anyone came to check). However, in the next hallway, she stopped short.

Outside of a different classroom, Liz was leaning against the wall with her head on her arms, and though Michelle could barely hear it, she knew Liz was crying. Her heart dropped into her stomach. Jesus _Christ_, she was an awful person. One of her good friends had almost died over the weekend, and Michelle was obsessing about a boy.

"Liz?" she said lowly, barely above a whisper, but Liz heard her anyway. She raised her tear-stained face to Michelle (whose heart panged in response) and immediately looked quite embarrassed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

"Um. Hi, Michelle," she said weakly, and sniffed.

"Liz," Michelle began, then stopped. She didn't know what to say, but she needed to get it right. _Go with your instincts, _her mother's voice whispered in her mind, and Michelle swallowed.

"I wasn't, I wasn't there," she said, and then mentally cursed. A normal person probably would have started with _Are you okay?, _though since she clearly wasn't okay, and would probably just lie if Michelle asked, maybe it was...okay. "I can't know how you feel," she continued, "But...if you want someone to talk to, just someone who can listen...I'm here for you." And she _was_, Michelle shouted at her Inner Voice, regardless of anything that might be happening with Peter or Spider-Man or whatever. "So, if you ever need to talk…" she trailed off, feeling awkward and not sure what to say after that. Liz had stopped crying and was staring at her. To Michelle's relief, she smiled weakly.

"Thank you, Michelle," she said, rubbing her eyes again. "I appreciate that. And I might take you up on that, later, when we don't have class…". Michelle nodded and thought guiltily of the Italian class she was missing. (It wasn't her finest moment.)

"You know you're the only one of my friends who's offered that?" Liz asked her suddenly, startling Michelle. "Everyone else is just like, '_What's Spider-Man like?_' and '_Oh, he saved you, how romantic!'"_ Michelle wrinkled her nose in distaste, and Liz misinterpreted her expression. "Not that I'm not grateful, to Spider-Man, I mean, because of _course _I am!" she rushed to add, but Michelle nodded.

"Kids at this school don't take anything seriously," she shrugged one shoulder. "They completely miss the point." _Oops. _The point was, of course, that Liz and the other's had almost died, and Michelle hadn't meant to bring that up. But Liz nodded vigorously.

"Yes, see, you get it!" _Well, _Michelle thought more than a little guiltily, _Not without a little reminder from the Universe, first…_

"That was too excellent, today, the way you tore Flash a new one," she said suddenly, and then felt stupid. _Tearing someone a new one_ was not typical teenage slang. But Liz laughed.

"It felt really good," she admitted. "And I think Flash might need to hear things like that more often."

"You can say that again!" Michelle exclaimed; she would've put it much stronger than that. Liz sighed, and so did Michelle. It had been a long day, and it wasn't even over yet.

"Well, I guess I need to go back to class," Liz said, and Michelle made a face.

"Me, too," she admitted. "But we can talk later, if you'd like?" Liz smiled, and Michelle was relieved to see that it was a true smile, if a small one.

"Maybe," she agreed. "Thanks, Michelle." Michelle bobbed her head.

"See you later."

* * *

A/N:

*"Miss Jones, what is the answer to question 5, please?"

Thanks for tuning in! I'm sorry to say that these next couple of chapters may be sort of 'filler' chapters until I can get to a point that adds the movie back in, or unique action, or both - I'm just a little bit stalled right now and not really sure where I'm going.

Have a wonderful week, everyone!


	8. Detention

A/N: Aaand we are back! Thanks to everyone who's tuned in, especially my new supporters: Broken Requiem, Crow In The Mist, ngelT, and TheBuddyWaterfalls! I must warn everyone that this is the end of my pre-written chapters, so while I'll still do my best to keep my Sunday deadline, I can't make any promises! Thanks in advance for your patience :)

**Alyssacassandra: **Thank you! I like adding things like that conversation (Michelle/Liz) in since it allows for the development of more minor characters - plus, as much as I love action movies, they often skip over the real human consequences of that action!

**Soundtrack**

Fireflies - Owl City

Sunflower - Post Malone, Swae Lee

Words - Daya

Everybody Talks - Neon Trees

**Chapter 8: Detention**

_October 12, 2016 (Tuesday)_

Michelle sighed as the calculus equations she was staring at blurred before her eyes. When had school suddenly become so dull, the days so hard to endure? It was too early in the school year to be burnt out. Michelle chanced a glance around the room. They were supposed to be working silently and independently on the worksheet Mr. Harris had handed out, but she could see that she wasn't the only one having trouble focusing. Flash was smirking at Cindy from across the room, tipping his chair back so that he was balancing on only the back legs - and, oh, Michelle _dearly _hoped he would fall. That would spice things up!

Though she couldn't see everything from her corner position, Ned and Seymour were clearly huddled together, and judging from their faces she could guess they were playing Hangman instead of doing math. She slid her gaze to the other side of the room. She had saved Peter for last, and was unsurprised to see him staring at the clock, willing the hands to move faster.

Not wanting to think about why that might be, she returned her gaze to her paper and jumped slightly when her phone vibrated in her lap. Glancing again at Mr. Harris to make sure he wasn't looking her way, she surreptitiously checked her messages:

LIZ: UGH, WHEN DID SCHOOL GET SO ROUGH ALL OF A SUDDEN? I'VE BEEN IN HISTORY FOR TWO HOURS, BUT ALSO ONLY TWENTY MINUTES.

Michelle raised an eyebrow. It wasn't just her class feeling the...whatever it was, then. She wrote back:

SAME FOR ME, ACTUALLY FOR ALL OF US. EVEN THE TEACHERS ARE FLAGGING. No more proof was needed than the fact that they were doing a worksheet silently in class instead of listening to Mr. Harris rant passionately about the subtle art of math.. Evidently he too wasn't yet back to 'normal' after last weekend's events. Her phone buzzed again.

LIZ: WISH WE DIDN'T HAVE DECATHLON TODAY.

Frankly, Michelle could've used the distraction, but going home, and, she didn't know, taking a nap or something, also sounded pretty great.

YOU'RE THE CAPTAIN, AND WE ALREADY WON NATIONALS...YOU CAN CANCEL PRACTICE? she asked Liz. Liz could use a nap, too.

Her answering reply of WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?! made Michelle smile.

"Mr. Thompson!" The entire class jumped, along with Flash, who, to Michelle's disappointment, _just _missed falling out of his chair.

"Seeing as you aren't doing any math," Mr. Harris continued, "I suppose that means that you've finished your worksheet already? Good. The answer to problem 7, please?" Seeing Flash's panicked face, Michelle smiled wider. Things were looking up.

* * *

After class, Michelle went to detention. Not because she actually _had_ detention (perish the thought!) but now with Decathlon practice canceled, she didn't have anything to do. Ned had gone to a doctor's appointment straight after school, Betty had journalism club, and Peter was - standing right in front of her?

Michelle blanched and dropped her pencil. Peter Parker in detention? When she hadn't heard about any Flash-related incidents or fights? This was cause for investigation.

"What'cha in for, Parker?" she drawled, twirling her recovered pencil. Peter scowled and sat down in the seat next to her.

"You skip out on one tiny Spanish quiz, and suddenly you're a delinquent." Michelle raised her eyebrows. _Delinquent _was a pretty strong word. And Peter was, annoyingly, good at everything without studying, so why did he skip?

"I just had better things to do," he replied, and Michelle jumped, not realizing she had voiced the question aloud. Sheesh.

"Like what?" she asked. Not that she thought for a minute that he would actually tell her-

"Just stuff." Uh-huh. Right. She sighed. She began sketching the detention monitor again, inwardly groaning when yet another awful Captain America instructional video began to play.

_ScreEEeEE! _Michelle flinched as Peter's chair scraped the floor when he jumped to his feet.

"Wha-where are you going? You just got here!"

"Gotta go, later," he blurted out, high-tailing it towards the door.

"Peter?!" He didn't spare a second glance back at her. Michelle folded her arms and huffed. Should she go after him?

She sneaked a look at the detention monitor, who looked like he was done with this day, this job, and this life. Plus, _she_ didn't have detention. She could go after him.

Why didn't she? Well, Peter could outrun her any day, other-worldly powers or not. And she was tired. And it wasn't like there wouldn't be any other investigation opportunities.

No, what she needed to do, she suddenly realized, was research.

* * *

At home, in her bedroom, Michelle stared at her blank computer screen. She could have used the school computer lab, but...well, despite research being the starting point of every investigation, she still felt rather silly.

Spider-Man, she typed into Google. And groaned. 1,060,000,000 results. Okay. Maybe something narrower.

Spider-Man identity,she tried next. Michelle clicked on a few promising links, but it was mostly all speculation. Height 5'10''. Weight estimated to be around 160 - 170 lbs. That could fit..._him_, but also probably hundreds of other people. She didn't even have hair or eye color to go off of, thanks to that mask. Time to try something else.

Spider-Man interviews. Ugh, no, that was no good either! Grrr. It didn't seem like anybody ever _talked _to him - only occasionally shouted to him as he swung by.

Spider-Man Washington Monument. 3,720,000 results. She didn't want the videos, though there were several - she'd been an eyewitness, after all. She was more interested in the news articles that had emerged in the aftermath. "Not that one, not that one…" she murmured softly to herself as she scrolled. Betty had mentioned in passing a controversial article from one of the big Washington DC papers...there!

"Masked Web-Slinger and Boys in Blue in Standoff at Washington Monument" screamed the _Washington Post_ headline. Oh, boy. Michelle clicked on it with some trepidation.

Between 3:17 and 4:02 PM on Sunday, October 10, the Washington Monument was shaken by tremors that could be approximated to that of a magnitude 6 or 7 earthquake, though there was no significant seismic activity recorded in the area.

Eyewitness accounts say that only moments after the tremors, the NYC vigilante known as 'Spider-Man' could be seen breaking into one of the building's viewing windows. He then proceeded to 'rescue' a group of school-children from a plummeting elevator.

Michelle frowned. He _had _rescued her (and _his?_) classmates from an almost certain painful death. There shouldn't be any contestation.

While (unconfirmed) sources do say that Spider-Man was responsible for the victim's safety, his initial breach of the Monument interfered with the local MPD's rescue initiative. This delay put the victim's lives at an even greater risk, and likely resulted in further damage worth several thousand dollars to the Monument.

"We had everything under control," an unnamed MPD officer confirmed shortly after the event. "Our department is well-trained to deal with this sort of large-scale emergency. [Spider-Man's] interference prevented us from doing our job, and could have resulted in a very different ending for the people at risk inside the Monument"

Furthermore, there have been questions about Spider-Man's sudden and very coincidental appearance in Washington DC, as well as the simultaneous failing of the Monument's safety protocols. Though very little is known about this individual, appearances of Spider-Man have never been documented outside the New York City area.

With the local FBI bureau ruling out any terrorist activity, it puts Spider-Man's actions in a more suspicious light. This isn't the first of his escapades that have resulted in victim trauma and city damage. On September 17, 2016, Spider-Man stopped a robbery at the Queens Community Bank in Queens, New York City - but when all was said and done, there was at least one bystander in need of medical attention, and the damage cost both Queens Community Bank thousands of dollars.

"As an established bank, we have safeguards and insurance to protect ourselves from theft. The bank would actually have lost less money if this Spider-fellow had left well enough alone and allowed the robbery to occur."

How does breaking into automated teller machines result in great structural and fire damage to the surrounding area? How could an ordinary human physically break into a highly-secure national building if he hadn't weakened its defenses beforehand (possibly with the same explosive device(s) responsible for the elevator victim's close brush with death)?

Does Spider-Man truly have good intentions, or could these acts of 'heroism' really be criminal misdeeds in disguise?

Both Spider-Man and the Monument victims were unavailable for comment.

By J. Jonah Jameson, October 10, 7:30 PM EDT

Michelle stared at her computer screen in shock, not a coherent thought in her head but pure anger burning in her stomach. Spider-Man, a criminal? Even if she didn't suspect what she did about his citizen identity, she would have a hard time believing it. Criminals didn't put their lives on the line to save others. They didn't purposefully endanger people. And while some heros did take advantage of any fame or glory that came their way (Tony Stark was a prime example of that), Spider-Man didn't seem to be looking for any. Giving directions, returning lost children to their parents, helping a little old lady cross the street safely - no problem was too small or trivial for him to help with.

_Ding!_ Michelle glanced at her phone to see a text from Betty. SEEN THE ARTICLE YET? Michelle started to text something back, then changed her mind.

"Hello?" Betty picked up on the second ring.

"This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read," she stated without preamble. Betty laughed dryly.

"It's something, isn't it? And the author - not sure if you've heard of him, but while J. Jonah Jameson is a pretty famous reporter, he's also sort of..._infamous._"

"I haven't heard of him before, but if all of the articles are like this, I can see why," Michelle remarked, scrolling down to the bottom of the webpage. "Have you seen these comments? At least the readers know what BS this is."

"Well, that's not necessarily true," Betty pointed out. "All of the readers who agree with him don't usually bother to comment." Michelle scowled.

"Aren't reporters supposed to be held to some sort of unbiased standard?" she asked. "As he pointed out, Liz and the others weren't 'available for comment' - but we're just kids! Of course, we weren't!" Betty sighed.

"Yeah, that's a sort of loophole in this business - you can point out that certain parties weren't available for comment, while fully knowing that it would be illegal to print any accounts from a minor without permission."

"Hey, when are you gonna be a full-fledged reporter, huh? Evidently our hometown hero needs journalists on his side."

"I think that would violate the 'unbiased standard' you mentioned," Betty joked, and Michelle laughed. "We had our _fabulous_ school news report, though."

"Yeah, about that," Michelle began, "Why are you always so...er…?"

"Unnatural and zombie-like?" Betty suggested.

"I was going to say 'uncomfortable'" she replied. Betty sighed.

"First of all, one word: Jason. Enough said." Michelle burst out laughing.

"I've wanted to be a reporter since I was little, but not the TV kind," Betty continued. "Or maybe I do, since print and written newspapers are really going out of style, but...I don't know. I hate cameras. Hate being _on _camera. But we don't have a school newspaper, so the news broadcast is the only thing really available."

"Well…" Michelle wasn't sure what to say next. "Practice makes perfect," she offered finally. "And you definitely have time to get over the fear of cameras before you go pro."

"I suppose so." She could hear Betty's smile on the other end of the line. "Thanks, Michelle."

"_Michelle!"_ She jumped about a foot in the air at her mom's voice, coming from downstairs. She hadn't even heard her mother come home. "_Time for dinner!"_

"I have to go," she said to Betty. "See you tomorrow?"

"You know it." Michelle hung up the phone and turned to go downstairs, but stopped at the sight of the comments page still open on her computer.

"Spider-Man IS a hero, and even heroes can't have it down right from the beginning - just look at Tony Stark!" one reader wrote.

"My kid was trapped in the Monument during the disaster, and the police didn't do squat. I say, THANK YOU, SPIDER-MAN!' another wrote. Michelle wondered whose parent that was. She sat back down and clicked LEAVE A COMMENT.

"Spider-Man's courage and selflessness is an example we should all strive to follow," she wrote. Michelle smiled and closed her laptop.

_She _had no doubt that Spider-Man was a hero, and one day, the rest of the world would know it, too.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading! If you liked it, hated it, or have suggestions, drop me a note! I hope to be ready for y'all on time next week :)


	9. The Core of It

A/N: Hello! Sorry for the huge gap between chapters; the last few weeks have been super packed due to midterms. **Alyssacassandra **kindly pointed out that I shouldn't rush or impede by best work due to a 'deadline', and I decided to take her advice. :)

(PS: Thank you for the construction! Yes, the previous chapter was a little shorter than I usually aim for, and it wasn't intentional. At the same time, though, I feel a sort of 'rhythm' when I write, so if I reach my stopping point earlier or later than usual in terms of word count, I try not to get too hung up on it.

Thank you to all of my current supporters and new supporters: James Birdsong, Twistedfury1213, dark knight 52, and tayloves, cuffufvimjahkahla, and whoever added me to the community 'The Fanfiction Expedition: All Things Fiction". I've never been added to a community before and I'm very honored!

**Soundtrack:**

S'envoler — Sindy

Be Alright — Dean Lewis

The Saltwater Room — Owl City

If My Heart Was a House — Owl City

Story of My Life — One Direction

**Chapter 9: The Core of It.**

_October 14, 2016 (Thursday) _

Michelle was going to go insane before she saw sixteen. Actually, if this kept up, she was going to go insane before Halloween.

The _crush _thing was bad enough. Her original plan, after her epiphany earlier that week, was to just ignore it. Pretend her feelings didn't exist. Most of her mind was on board with that plan, but her hormones evidently hadn't gotten the memo. Because now _everything _that Peter did suddenly seemed attractive, and though Michelle had always been an observant person, she was now _hyper_-aware of Peter.

Right now, for instance, Peter and Ned were seated a couple of rows behind her and Betty, working on their Spanish project together, and though they were whispering, Michelle's ears picked up on Peter's voice as clearly as if he were right next to her. And though their seating arrangement made it impossible for her to look at him, she nonetheless felt the overwhelming urge to turn and get a glimpse of him - which she would, at least once a class period, roaming her eyes over the rest of the room first so that she wouldn't be caught staring.

She closed her eyes, and sighed when she realized that even in her mind's eye she couldn't ignore Peter Parker - his hair, his chestnut curls, were prominently in the forefront of her mind even as the rest of her brain focused on other things. _Christ. _She groaned and laid her head down on her desk.

"You okay?" Michelle nearly flinched, then cursed in her head. _Speak of the devil._She raised her eyes only slightly and glared at Peter.

"_Mind your own business, loser,"_ she hissed back. He just shrugged, though the concern didn't leave his eyes. She sighed and lay her head back down, and didn't open her eyes until she felt someone's gaze on her.

Betty was frowning at her, and Michelle was prepared for another micro-lecture on catching flies with honey instead of vinegar, but the other girl just asked,

"_Are _you okay? You look a bit pale." Michelle bit her lip.

"I don't feel so hot," she admitted. Betty's eyebrows knit together in concern.

"Is it-?" she began.

"Maybe," Michelle interrupted, jerking her head to one side and then cutting her eyes towards Flash, who she'd realized was eagerly listening in. Period cramps weren't anything to be ashamed of, if that's what they were, but Flash latched onto people's vulnerabilities like a shark on blood in the water, and she'd be damned if she was giving him any ground.

"Ahh," Betty caught on to Michelle's reluctance and turned away from Flash's predatory gaze. "I have iBuprofen in my locker after class, if you want." Michelle smiled weakly.

"Thanks." After that, they had to stop talking - not because of Flash, but because of the study hall monitor prowling the room - and Betty turned back to her history assignment while Michelle contemplated her computer in front of her.

She was presumably working on her English report, but had barely made any headway. She just couldn't seem to get her brain into gear today. Instead, she opened a new tab and typed Spider-Man bank robbery. Something had been bugging her since her research session a couple of days earlier. In the article she'd read, the reporter had alluded to a bank robbery where Spider-Man's heroics had, apparently, done more harm than good, and though Michelle vaguely remembered seeing it on the news, she couldn't remember much more about it. She glanced around furtively to make sure the hall monitor wasn't watching, plugged in her earbuds, and clicked on the first link. And suppressed a gasp.

It wasn't the indoor footage of the fight that she briefly remembered seeing. Instead, it was shot from outside the bank, and she watched in horror as - lasers? Some kind of colored energy - sliced through the building, setting off some small explosions and nearby buildings on fire. She swallowed hard.

The Washington Monument had probably been the more dangerous of the two situations, but the critical difference was this: no one would want revenge on P-Spider-Man for rescuing victims from what had been ruled as a structural accident. On the other hand, these bank robbers were dangerous criminals, armed with lethal weapons, and Peter had interrupted their perfect crime. Most importantly, though, they'd all gotten away; nobody had been caught. They were still out there!

Michelle shuddered, feeling as though her body was flooding first with ice, then with heat. Oh, _God. _She leapt up and sprinted for the door, knocking over her chair in her haste to get out.

"Michelle!"

"_Michelle?"_ her friends called after her in concern, but she barely heard them. She reached the girls' bathroom in the nick of time and was promptly very messily sick. She groaned and tried to push herself up a little, and when the haze in her mind cleared she realized in horror that Peter had followed her in and seen the entire thing.

"Michelle, are you-?"

"Get the fuck out," she gasped, still heaving.

"But-"

"_Out_, loser! This is the girls bathroom!" To her relief, he left, and she slumped back over the toilet, knuckles white as she gripped the sides like a lifeline. She groaned as she heard the door open again, and before she could turn and tell Peter to go away for a second time, her stomach lurched and she was forced over the bowl again. Someone knelt behind her and held her hair back, and Michelle didn't realize it was Betty till her friend murmured, "It'll be over soon. Deep breaths." She tried to comply, and eventually she felt okay enough to sit up.

"Thanks," she whispered as Betty helped her up. The other girl just shrugged.

"Don't mention it." Michelle rinsed out her mouth and felt a little better, though the inside of her mouth still tasted like something had died there. _Ugh. _

Her stomach gave another unpleasant lurch as, when Betty guided her outside, Peter wasn't there waiting for them. The part of her that hated to be vulnerable was relieved, while the rest of her, now that the adrenaline had worn off, was ashamed at how rudely she had rejected his help. Something he was clearly upset about, if he was staying away now. She swallowed hard and blinked back the tears that suddenly sprang up.

Michelle barely remembered Betty escorting her to the nurse, waiting for her mother to come pick her up, or the car ride home. The next thing she knew, her mother was gently shaking her awake so that she could put on pyjamas before going to bed properly. The emotions and events that had happened less than an hour earlier flood back all at once, and her eyes filled with tears again. Claire Jones' frowned in concern as she smoothed her daughter's hair.

"What hurts, sweetheart? What's wrong? Tell me." Michelle choked down a sob. What was wrong? _Everything!_

"I ruined everything!" she gasped, blurting out what had been looping in the back of her mind since she pushed Peter away. "And," she continued as another thought occurred to her, "Ned _knows_!" Her mom blinked in bemusement.

"_I _know that he knows, and Peter knows that he knows," she rambled on. "But they don't know that I know! And he's in danger!" Her mother frowned.

"Who?" Michelle suppressed a groan of frustration; she wasn't _getting it_!

"Spider-Man!" Her mom continued to stare at her in absolute confusion until, after another few moments, a light of recognition dawned in her eyes.

"It's okay, Michelle," her mother soothed, tucking her into bed now. "I have weird dreams when I'm running a fever, too." _What?_

She needed to sit up and explain to her mom, tell her that that wasn't it, not at all...but her eyes were so heavy...and her bed was so soft...Claire smiled gently as her daughter drifted off to sleep.

"Get some rest, baby."

* * *

A couple of hours later, Michelle was slowly blinking awake as she tried to figure out where she was. She'd just had the oddest dream involving a wedding between Liz and _Flash_, of all people. Peter was the organ player (did they have those at weddings?) Ned was the ring-bearer, and Mr. Harrington was the officiate. _So weird._

Getting her bearings, though, she was still in her room, and she could see by the sunlight streaming through the window that it was early afternoon. She yawned and lay back down, and had almost fallen back asleep when she heard her mother's voice outside the door.

"Just a minute," she was saying to a second person, "I'll check." Her mom subtly peeked through the doorway. "Michelle, honey? Are you awake?"

"Ish," replied Michelle groggily.

"Phone for you," her mother said, smiling, and Michelle blinked when she realized it was the house phone and not her cell.

"Who calls our _landline_?" she asked. Maybe her grandmother? But her mother smirked.

"Spider-Man," she joked, handing the phone over. Michelle giggled nervously and hid her wince. So she _hadn't_ dreamt that bit of the day, then. _Oops. _

"Don't talk too long — you need some more sleep," her mother instructed before leaving the room. Michelle nodded.

"Hello?" she asked tentatively, though she had a pretty good idea of who it was.

"Hey, Michelle!" Peter replied cheerfully. "How are you feeling?" She'd been right, and suddenly her stomach was twisting from more than the flu. _Okay, deep breath._

"Not great, but better than before, at least," she managed to reply.

"I'm glad!" Michelle could practically see his smile _through the phone._ She had it _bad_, as Betty might say. Sheesh.

"Hey, how'd you get this number, anyway?" she asked suddenly, trying to distract herself from her own thoughts. "You stalking?" _Whoops_, that had come out wrong! Thankfully, Peter just laughed.

"Well, your phone died, and, as it turns out there's this thing called the _Internet_," he teased. Michelle was both amused and irritated that he was imitating her own tone of voice, the one that she used when she had to explain something obvious. "And on this World Wide Web, there's something called the _White Pages_, and then—"

"Ha-ha," she said dryly, cutting him off and rolling her eyes, though he couldn't see it. Deeper down, though, she squirmed with more than a little pleasure. He'd taken the extra effort just to call her and ask how she was doing, even after she'd blown him off this morning, which, _oh_, speaking of which…

"Hey, I'm really sorry about this morning," she blurted out, not sure how to say it and not wanting to beat around the bush.

"This morning?" Michelle couldn't tell if Peter was legitimately confused or if he was playing dumb to spare her feelings, and she wasn't sure which one she preferred.

"Er, well," she stammered, actually squirming in discomfort, before taking another deep breath to ground herself. She could do this. "This morning," she started again, "You were just concerned, and uh, being a good friend, and I was really rude...and then, later, in the bathroom, um…" she trailed off as she cringed at the memory.

"_Ohhh. _Don't worry about it."

"But—"

"No, seriously," he cut her off earnestly. "You weren't feeling well, obviously, and throwing up really _sucks_, and, even without all that, friends snip at each other sometimes." Michelle suppressed a sigh of relief as she reached up to yank one of her curls nervously.

"So...we're cool?"

"I'm _always_ cool!" Peter exclaimed, and she could just _see _him smirking and striking some dorky pose.

"_Loser,_" she muttered quietly, though she could hear the smile in her own voice.

"Mmph!" Yes, he was definitely smirking.

"So," she sighed, changing the subject for the moment, "I miss anything important today?"

"Nah," he said casually. "Just, like, a math quiz worth half our grade."

"_Whaaat?_!"

"Kidding! I'm just kidding!" Michelle growled under her breath.

"Get you for that," she muttered, though both of them knew she didn't mean it. She absently glanced at her clock and frowned. Wait a minute…

"Peter, are you ditching class to call me?" she asked accusingly. Her internal clock was off, and it was actually only two in the afternoon — school was still in session. Long pause. She was about to dem-_ask_, again when Peter airily replied,

"Michelle Jones, I can say with one-hundred-percent honesty that I am not skipping class to talk to you."

"_Uh-huh_," she said skeptically, eyes narrowed in her signature _something's-not-right-here _squint. She was reminded of nothing else so much as the time Peter had, with 'one-hundred-percent honesty', told their 3rd grade chemistry teacher that, no, Michelle certainly hadn't attempted to dye Flash neon-green — which was true, _because he was the one who'd done so._ Right.

"What are you—?"

"_Ehhhh!_ Sorry, you're out of time," he exclaimed, buzzing her out as though in Decathlon. "Subject change, please!"

"Do you play the organ?" she immediately asked, both in remembrance of her earlier dream and wanting to catch him off guard.

"Do I-_what?_" he asked, completely confused. Michelle giggled. _Eww. No. _No giggling; that needed to be a new rule. Michelle Jones did not giggle.

"I had this weird dream," she began, before she was interrupted abruptly by Peter talking to someone on the other end.

"What? No, May, I'm _not _using my phone!" he hollered, before hurriedly whispering, "Sorry, Michelle, I gotta go—"

"What?—"

"Feel-better-soon-talk-to-you-later!" he rushed out.

"_Uh-_"

"Bye!" _Click. _Michelle blinked and pulled the phone away, staring at it confusion. She pressed 'END' and put the phone down. That last part had been weird.

But! Peter had called her, specifically, to see how she was doing! And they were okay, to her great relief, though now that she wasn't distracted, fear was starting to creep back in again. She sighed and lay down. Peter and/or Spider-Man was in danger, and she couldn't let things just lie...but she couldn't tell him she (probably) knew his secret identity...but...what could she do?

Well, nothing at this very moment, that was for sure. She was going to sleep some more, and then...and then...well, she didn't know. But she'd think of something.

* * *

"He _what!?_" she exclaimed to Betty through the phone the next afternoon, Friday. To her dismay, she hadn't been well enough to go back to school that morning, having been sick again in the middle of the night. Now Betty was filling her in on what she'd missed, including news on Peter.

"He got suspended for punching Flash out," Betty repeated patiently. "He was defending _you_," she added more than a little gleefully. "Flash was making some dumb-ass comments about your 'performance' yesterday morning — not that he saw anything, mind you, and-_Boom! _Peter decked him; down he went!" Michelle just didn't know how to reply to that. She wasn't a damsel in distress or anything...but Peter had defended her! Which meant he cared, which, okay, she already knew that, in general terms...while Michelle was still puzzling that out, Betty continued,

"He's also grounded for a few days, and May took away his phone and computer—"

"He called me yesterday!" she blurted out, and immediately wished she could take the words back.

"Oh-_ho_!" Betty exclaimed, and Michelle cringed. "Called to check up on you did he?" she asked airily. "Was concerned about you, was he?"

"_Drop it,_" Michelle said, though it came out as more of a groan than a growl.

"_I wo-on't!_" Betty sing-songed back, and now Michelle groaned for real. "_He likes you_, even if he hasn't realized it yet. You just need to make the first move is all." Pause. "You should ask him out to Homecoming!"

"_No!_"

"Oh, why not? Hey, you can ask Peter and I can ask Ned, and we can double-date!"

"Gross! No!"

"Just think about it," she wheedled, and Michelle sighed.

"Fine, I'll think about it," she conceded, though it was mainly to get Betty to drop the subject.

"Good. Oh, that reminds me!" Betty exclaimed. "We need to go dress shopping this weekend!" Michelle suppressed yet another groan. Ugh. Shopping.

"Isn't that kind of putting the cart before the horse?" she asked, trying a different tactic instead of a flat-out 'no'. "We haven't even asked yet." Whoops, she had basically just said that she would ask Peter to Homecoming. _Shit!_ "I mean, we haven't decided if we're going to go, yet," she hurriedly corrected.

"Oh, I'm going either way — and so are you! Even if you don't know it yet."

"Fi-iinne," Michelle whined, though a dance didn't seem nearly as horrifying as it would've at the beginning of the school year. She'd survived Liz's party okay, after all.

"Tomorrow?" Betty suggested. Michelle bit her lip.

"Tentatively, yes, but maybe Sunday if I'm still not feeling great tomorrow."

"Of course." Betty replied. "Oh, I have to go-family dinner. Just text me tomorrow either way, okay?"

"Sounds good," Michelle said.

After she hung up, she returned to what she'd been doing before Betty called: strategizing. After she'd slept on it a couple of nights, she'd taken to watching YouTube and news footage of Spider-Man, and brainstorming ideas for crime-fighting. She suppressed a sigh. It would be so much easier if she could _ask _Peter what kind of things might be useful, but..._no. _At the moment, no matter how she rationalized it out, she kept returning to the thought that if she and Peter collaborated on this, he could later be tracked and attacked through her, somehow. Probably one of those _gut-feelings_ her mother was always talking about. Best to trust her instincts, for now.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope to have the next chapter out soon. :)


	10. Bien dans sa Peau

A/N: Sorry for the incredibly long wait! Thanks to finals, I had too much work to do and too little inspiration. I'm on break now, and I hope this is the first of a few chapters I can bring you before school starts again!

This chapter is a little shorter than I'd like, but Homecoming will be next, and this chapter would be way too long if I tried to squeeze it in.

Alysscassandra: Mwa ha ha! There will be ALL the buildup! Never apologize for 'late' reviews - No such thing! And I haven't updated in ages so XD

Peter MJ fan28: Your reiew made me laugh! Thanks :)

Thank you also to my other new supporters, ColdSummerDays, DarkXDShadow, HarmonyIsBest, IanAlphaAxel, Mercm3, Milo21, StonedCactus, avidnarutofan, bitchacho14, concurstar, 117, as well as various guests who've asked me to please hurry up and update :D For the guest who was worried they were being pushy - be pushy! It motivates me.

**Soundtrack:**

Perfect to Me - Anne Marie

Like a Girl - Lizzo

Brave - Sara Bareilles

Crush - David Archuleta

**Chapter 10: Bien dans sa peau**

_October 17, 2018 (Sunday)_

Inside the department store dressing room, Michelle groaned and closed her eyes. After three hours of ruthless shopping with Betty, she still hadn't found a suitable dress for Homecoming.

"The red one you tried on was perfect!" Betty shouted from outside for at least the twentieth time.

Well, one that _she _thought was suitable.

"It was too revealing!" Michelle called back, _for at least the twentieth time._

"It was dress code!" Betty argued. (The author will allow you, the reader, to imagine what might be considered 'too revealing' - it's different for everyone, after all.) "Plus, Peter will _definitely _take notice if you wear it."

Momentarily confused due to the disturbance in the universe that comes from breaking the fourth wall, Michelle needed a few moments before she could reply,

"That's not the point!"

"What _is _the point?" Betty groaned. She loved to shop, but having found her own dress one hour in, was understandably frustrated with Michelle at this point.

"The point," Michelle said, unlocking the dressing room door and walking out, "Is that I dress for me, not for anyone else. And that the dance is supposed to be fun and not stressful, which won't happen in an uncomfortable dress."

"That's...a good point, damn it." Betty sighed. Michelle laughed. "I still say you should ask him to the dance, though."

"I can't do that!" she protested, not for the first time. Betty just rolled her eyes. Bouncing off the bench and grabbing Michelle's arm, she steered the other girl once again toward the women's formalwear. "We must have tried every dress in the store by now," she said, pausing to peer into a clothing rack, then shaking her head and moving on. "If you can't find anything here, I guess we'll have to go somewhere else." Michelle blanched inwardly. She couldn't handle another three hours in a new store. Spurred by Betty's unintentional threat, she grabbed a couple of dresses that had caught her eye before, but she had passed over the first few times.

Back in the dressing room, she rejected the first dress, a sea-green floor length one that was too small, though in retrospect it was probably a bit too formal for a Homecoming dance anyway. Which left just one dress.

_Please work, _Michelle prayed as she slipped it on. "Oh," Michelle exclaimed in surprise, examining herself in the mirror.

"Was that a good 'Oh?'" Betty asked from outside the dressing room. "It sounded like a good 'Oh'." Michelle opened the door. "_Ohhhh."_ Like Michelle, Betty could see immediately that this was the perfect choice. To Michelle's amusement, Betty grabbed her arm once more and attempted to drag her to the register. "Hurry up and buy it before you change your mind!"

"Betty, most people take off their purchase before paying for it," Michelle pointed out, smirking.

"Oh! Right." Michelle rolled her eyes and went to go change.

Outside the store, Michelle's spirits were momentarily lifted. She had a dress! They were crushed in the next moment with Betty's proclamation: "And now, time for makeup!"

"No way!" Michelle protested as Betty made to drag her into the nearest cosmetics store. "I don't wear makeup!" She had tried it out, maybe a year or two ago, but hadn't continued, deciding it was too uncomfortable and unnatural. Undeterred, Betty replied,

"Well, I do. Just come with me while I find what I need." Realizing that it was the least she could do after her friend spent two hours helping her find a dress, Michelle agreed.

Inside the store, she browsed aimlessly while Betty hunted down what she needed. A tube of lipstick caught her eye. _Try it on_, whispered a little voice in her head. She mentally shrugged. Why not? She had time to kill. She paused at the tray of sampler lipsticks. Surely you weren't supposed to put it directly on your lips? That would be very unhygienic. Mentally rolling her eyes at how much she sucked at being a typical girl, Michelle looked around and spotted a bin of applicators.

"Ooh, that looks good." Michelle jumped, so focused on what she was doing that she hadn't noticed Betty come up beside her. "You should definitely buy it." Michelle looked in the mirror again, hesitating.

"You don't think it's too bright?" Betty shook her head.

"It's pretty subtle. I can hardly see it, honestly." Biting her lip, Michelle frowned at her reflection.

"Nah," she said finally. "Not my thing." Betty shrugged.

"Suit yourself."

Later, though, after Betty's ride picked her up and Michelle was waiting for her own mother, the niggling thought wouldn't go away. She _had _kind of liked the lipstick, actually. And Betty said it was pretty natural looking...before she could change her mind, she went back into the store and grabbed the tube.

Because really, why not?

* * *

_October 20, 2018 (Wednesday)_

Later that week, Wednesday morning, Michelle was having second thoughts about everything - Peter, the dance, makeup, all of it. She'd had a dozen chances since shopping with

Betty to get Peter alone and ask him to Homecoming, but she'd chickened out every time. She glared at her reflection in the mirror. The dance was in three days. She was running out of time.

_Stupid_, the little mean voice in her head was mocking her. _Peter's not going to say yes! And he's sure not going to notice your lipstick._ Because Michelle had the tube in her hand, deciding whether to wear it or not.

_What happened to 'I dress for me and nobody else?_ her more rational voice argued back, tackling the easier of the two problems first. She could wear makeup. Sure, she almost never had in the past - as a kid, books had taught her that only vapid, unintelligent girls dressed up and wore makeup - but it wasn't even remotely true. The two things weren't mutually exclusive. _Plus, you already bought it, _the rational voice pointed out. Hmm.

"Okay, fine," Michelle muttered to nobody as she put on the damn lipstick. She tried to smile at her reflection before she left the room.

The negative voice in her head was silent now, and a - tiny - part of her thought that, maybe, if she was the type of girl who could wear lipstick, she could be the type of girl that could ask her crush to a school dance. It would be fine. It would be fine.

* * *

It would not be fine.

"You can do this," Betty said under her breath as they approached Peter and Ned in the hallway at the end of the day.

"I really can't."

"You really can. Ask him as a friend, at least! Considering Ned thinks we're all going as a group, anyway." Betty's asking out Ned hadn't gone so well - that boy was _clueless! _Michelle took a deep breath. Betty was right. Her asking out Peter couldn't possibly go worse than that - and asking him as a friend, she could do that. She could do it.

"Ned!" Betty exclaimed louder as they reached the boys. "What a surprise to run into you here!"

"At our lockers at the end of the school day?" Ned frowned, confused. Betty pressed on. "I have an urgent computer problem. _Urgent_. Come help me fix it?" It was more of an order than a request as she grabbed his arm and started to pull him away.

"But if you have your laptop with you, why do we need to go -?" Michelle stifled a giggle as Betty rolled her eyes and mouthed _Clueless _as she dragged Ned away. And then it was just her and Peter. Alright. She could do this.

"What's up, Michelle?" Peter smiled _that smile_ at her. Eek.

"Not much…" she began, then trailed off. Ugh! _How _did people do this?

"I like your lipstick," Peter said offhandedly as he grabbed books from his locker to take home. Michelle blinked in surprise.

"Oh! Thanks." Wow. Not only did Peter notice, but he was the first and only person to compliment her on it! _Take that, negative inner voice!_

"So, Peter, you're going to Homecoming, aren't you?" She knew from Betty, who knew from Ned, that he was, but they personally hadn't talked about it already and it was a good opener.

"Yeah!" His eyes crinkled and lit up as he suddenly remembered, "Oh, I forgot to tell you!"

"The dry cleaners screwed up and you have to wear a pink suit to the dance?" she deadpanned. That had happened a few years ago at one memorable band concert. Not that guys couldn't wear pink, though. And Peter had actually looked very - Michelle, _focus_!

"Haha, nope!" They both grinned at the memory, and then Peter beamed even wider, "I asked Liz to Homecoming, and she said yes!

Michelle's smile froze on her face, only years of masking her emotions keeping it there.

"Oh!" Turns out that it could be worse. _Much _worse. Breathe. _And say something! _her mind shouted at her. "That's great. That's...really cool." It didn't sound even remotely convincing. She opened her locker door and hid her face as she took a moment to compose herself. _Peter is my best friend, and I am happy for him,_ she reminded herself. If nothing else, it did make her happy to see Peter so excited and happy. She turned and gave him a real smile this time. "You've liked Liz for a long time, and it's pretty cool that you got the guts to finally ask her!" Peter smiled goofily.

"I can't believe it, honestly." _Me, either._ Michelle swallowed hard. As she and Peter slammed their lockers shut and grabbed their backpacks, Ned and Betty were coming back towards them. Betty's wide-eyed, distressed expression told Michelle that she'd just found out about Liz, too. As the four of them fell into step and Ned and Peter started discussing some sort of sci-fi topic, Betty said out of the corner of her mouth,

"I didn't know, Michelle, I swear, I'm sorry-"

"Not here. I know! But not here," Michelle muttered back. They couldn't hash this out in front of the boys. It could wait.

* * *

"I waited too long," Michelle groaned, facedown on her bed, in her room at home. From her place on the floor, Betty was trying to boost her spirits.

"Well, yes, a little bit," Betty conceded. "But, also...I mean, it is _Peter_. And nobody thought - he's really - you know what I mean!" she flushed in frustration.

"Yeah." Weirdly, Michelle _did _know what she meant.

"It's really not a big deal," Betty continued. Michelle didn't say anything. She was right, but...it kind of felt like a big deal.

"It's not like they're getting married." Michelle snorted, again remembering her wedding fever dream. Encouraged, Betty went on,

"They're not boyfriend-girlfriend. We're going out to dinner in a big group, and the dance will be really chaotic and loud…" Michelle started to smile. "And after the dance..." Michelle stopped smiling. Betty paused to think for a moment. "Well, Peter moves at a glacial pace when it comes to girls, so, really, I don't think you have anything to worry about," she finished. After a minute, Michelle smiled.

"I don't know about that, but I know you're a good friend who will help me through it either way. Thanks." Betty threw her hands up in frustration, laying down on the floor.

"Some wing-woman I am, though," Betty complained. "I don't even know when the guy my friend likes has suddenly grown a pair and asked another girl out!" Michelle snickered before she could stop herself.

"Hey, when Ned told you about Liz, you didn't tell Ned…?" she trailed off questioningly.

"No, no, I didn't tell him anything...private. He mentioned it in passing when I brought up Homecoming. Although, I think for everyone but Peter and Ned, your feelings can be seen from space."

"_Greeeaat_," Michelle groaned sarcastically.

"It's not a bad thing!" Michelle vehemently disagreed. For someone who had hid her emotions from others for years, it was a very bad thing. It was -

"Michelle!"

"Yeah, Mom?" she called back in surprise, not realizing that her mom had come home.

"What is this list down here with your homework? 'Tranquilizer darts, laser-blinding, nunchucks'?" Michelle froze in barely contained panic. That list was her brainstorming ideas for...you-know-who, to help him. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. _She suppressed a cringe at Betty's baffled expression.

How was she going to explain this one?


	11. Homecoming

A/N: Look at me, back with an update already! Ah, the beauty of vacation. Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading, following and reviewing, especially new supporters neonfairytale, Zenithz, SpiderMarko, stlupin, and smacktwinsrule.

Alysscassandra: Thanks for reviewing! I love writing the little moments and I'm glad to know people appreciate them! :)

Petermj fan 28: First of all, thanks for reviewing! Your comments always make me smile. Second, ah..._sorry in advance _*goes to find a good hiding place*

**Soundtrack **

Beautiful People - Ed Sheeran, Khalid

One More Time - Daft Punk

Cupid Shuffle - Cupid

Enchanted - Owl City (Not on Spotify, unfortunately)

**Chapter 11: Homecoming**

_October 23, 2017 (Saturday)_

Michelle blinked hard as the camera flash blinded her.

"Mom, come on, we have to get going," she complained.

"I know, I know - but just one more!" Michelle resisted the urge to roll her eyes. In her opinion, her mom was _way _too excited about her first Homecoming...but then again, it _was_ her first school dance ever, and she was an only child...she could put up with it.

"Smile!"

But only for a few more minutes.

Snapping one more of the four of them - Michelle, Peter, Betty, and Ned, because Peter was going to Liz's house to pick her up before dinner - her mother was finally satisfied.

"Have a great time!" her mother exclaimed, beaming at Michelle as the other three went out the door. "Though not _too _great of a time," she added, before - oh, God - winking at Michelle.

"Mom! Gross!"

"I'm just saying," her mom continued - _please, make it stop_ \- "these dances should be fun; you're only in high school once. Yes, you do have a curfew...but if you needed to _bend _that curfew-"

"_La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la_," Michelle sang loudly, putting her hands over her ears. She _had _told her mom that she and Peter weren't going together, but...deaf ears. _Deaf ears._

"Okay, okay, I'll let you go. But, sans innuendo? Do enjoy yourself." Michelle smiled.

"I will," Michelle smiled.

"Though I think we need to have a talk this weekend," Claire added, opening the door for her.

"Talk? About…?" her mother raised her eyebrows meaningfully. "What? Mom, you gave me..._that talk_...when I was twelve!"

"Yeah, but, honey, the thing about parenting is that it's not very responsible to talk about important issues just once. And now that's it's relevant-"

"It is not relevant! We aren't going together!"

"That's not really the point," her mother said, still infuriatingly calm about the whole thing. "I will say that it isn't relevant this very minute, though, so I won't keep you. Have fun!"

"Thanks, Mom," she said, rolling her eyes but unable to keep from smiling just the same. She ran out the door before her mother could embarrass her even more.

"Okay, we're free now," she joked as she caught up to the trio. "Let's get going."

"What's up with you?" Peter raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Michelle tried to school her face into a more normal expression.

"Nothing, just my mom being a mom."

"So, what, she -"

"Yeah, so we don't want to be late!" Michelle cut him off, running for the car. "Shotgun!" She hid a grin at the boys' complaining. She jumped into the front seat as Betty leaned toward her from the driver's side.

"What _is_ up?" she whispered out of the boys' earshot. Michelle rolled her eyes.

"Apparently my mom and I need to 'talk' this weekend," she muttered, finger-quoting 'talk'.

"But-" Betty frowned. "You mean you haven't had -"

"Oh, I have. Apparently it's time for a refresher," Michelle quipped. Betty gave her a shit-eating grin.

"So-"

"Tease me, and I'll tell her you need some _advice,_" Michelle threatened, albeit playfully. Betty blanched.

"My lips are sealed," she promised, zipping her lips and throwing away the key.

"Sealed about what?" Both girls jumped as Ned piped up from the back.

"Oh, we're just plotting," Michelle began,

"For after the dance," Betty continued,

"When we're going to kidnap you both,"

"And have our evil way with you…". And then both of them turned around and gave the boys identical evil grins. Michelle relished the split-second expression of surprise on Peter's face - the same one still stuck on Ned's.

"Oh, so that's the way it is, huh," Peter laughed.

"You know it!"

Michelle turned in her seat and her earlier grin fell off her face. They had arrived at Liz's house.

"_Dun-dun-dun, dun, dun-duh, dun , dun-duh_," Ned hummed the _Imperial March_. Peter punched him in the shoulder.

"Very funny. Some trust? Some confidence, please?"

"You're meeting Liz at her house instead of at the dance," Betty began,

"So that you can meet her parents," Ned added,

"And then her dad's driving you both to the dance," Michelle hopped on,

"Probably so that he can threaten you in private before you go in," Betty finished.

"Yikes, tough crowd in this car tonight. And what's with the Weasley Twins act?"

"If you don't hurry it up, you'll be late," Michelle pointed out, gesturing at the dashboard clock. She didn't want Peter to leave, but she didn't want to think about the next part of the evening. Why had she agreed to go to Homecoming, again? She had been to exactly _one _party before. A room full of strangers, loud pounding music, Peter and Liz being all romantic, Flash, being an ass, and what if-

"_Woah_, girl, chill out," Betty murmured as Peter went inside and they pulled away from Liz's house. "I can practically see the gears grinding in your head. Take a deep breath. This is supposed to be fun, and it will be. Okay? No pressure, just good music, terrible punch, and I'm sure Flash will do something stupidly entertaining, like always." Michelle snorted.

"Fine, but when it all goes south, I'll have no reservations about saying 'I told you so'." Betty raised an eyebrow.

"Do you ever?"

"_Touche_."

All too soon, they arrived at the school.

"_Aaand _here we are folks, the event of the season, the years that will be the best of our lives!" Betty announced as she parked the car. Though she knew Betty was speaking ironically, Michelle still cringed. She always hated when adults said that. Personally, Michelle didn't want to peak in high school. She could get in the act, though.

"Such fond memories," she sighed faux-dramatically. "Such nostalgia, and we're not even through yet."

"Such pain, that time that Flash duck-taped me to the flag pole in my underwear freshman year," Ned reminisced in the same tone. Both girls stopped in their tracks.

"_Dude_. Can you say 'massive overshare?'" Michelle asked rhetorically, wincing.

"Not a refresher I needed," Betty agreed. When Ned was a few more steps ahead of them, Michelle leaned towards her and whispered,

"Yes, we can't have you thinking about Ned without any clothing on." She grinned mischievously.

"_Mmph!_" Michelle probably shouldn't take as much pleasure as she was in her friend's embarrassed demeanor. However, Betty was so rarely the Flustered One, and even more rarely rendered speechless, that Michelle had to bask in it. "_Shut up,_" Betty groaned good-naturedly when she got her brain back online, shoving Michelle's shoulder. Michelle laughed aloud. She wasn't even anxious anymore.

* * *

The cafeteria was, unsurprisingly, neither magical nor enchanting. It did look pretty good, though, considering.

"Liz and the committee did a nice job," Ned said admiringly, echoing her thoughts. _Aaand _the anxiety was back. That was quick. She pushed it aside, avoiding it mentally in much the same way as the three of them skirted physically around Flash and his cronies. Almost immediately, they found themselves surrounded by their classmates, though not suffocatingly so. As one song ended and a new one began, Ned suddenly burst out into some of the most ridiculous dance moves Michelle had ever seen.

"In a dance showdown between me and Flash, who would win?" he asked them both.

"_Flash,_" both girls chorused simultaneously. Ned pouted, though his enthusiastic dance didn't halt in the slightest.

"What about Flash versus Peter?" he asked then.

"Flash."

"Peter." Betty looked at Michelle quizzically. She shrugged.

"Peter's good at lots of things, but dancing isn't one of them," she said simply. She glanced around the room then, as surreptitiously as she could - Peter and Liz hadn't arrived yet. If Betty noticed her look, she didn't say anything. Speak of the devil, though - Flash was approaching them. Ugh.

"What up, losers," he shouted as he reached them. "You coming to my after-party?" _Not a chance in hell, _Michelle wanted to say. But she held her tongue. There was no need to purposely start something; not this early in the night.

"We've got other plans," she said instead. The three of them, and maybe Liz, were sleeping over at Betty's after the dance.

"Suit yourself," Flash said, shrugging. "You want a drink?" Michelle had no idea how he'd managed it, but he'd smuggled in an entire bottle of vodka and some red solo cups. She almost asked him, but then realized she didn't care.

Ned did a shot, Betty waved the bottle away - she was driving them later - and then Flash offered the bottle to her, smirking in his insufferable way. He expected her to refuse. Michelle wasn't sure why, but many of her classmates seemed to believe she was a goody-two-shoes. Sure, she'd had her fair share of being a teacher's pet, but most of the time she followed the rules when it was simple and easy to do so, not for the sake of following them. She grabbed the bottle and poured herself a drink, enjoying the way Flash's smirk disappeared when he did so.

She did the equivalent of a shot, coughing. She'd tried alcohol a few times before - out of curiosity with her mom, a couple of times on the sly with her cousins - and she always forgot how much it burned.

"Thanks," she said, smirking at Flash. His eyebrows raised slightly in surprise.

"Whatever," he said, moving away to go target some other unsuspecting students. They watched him go. Ned scratched his head.

"Did we just have a civil interaction with _Flash? _All three of us?"

"Yup."

"Seems that way." The three of them just stared after him for a moment.

"Weird," Ned said finally. Betty laughed, Michelle finished her drink - there weren't too many chaperones around, but why push things - and they moved to join some Decathlon teammates at the other side of the room.

Some minutes later - she didn't know exactly when - Michelle realized she was having a good time. It wasn't like a switch flipped in her brain, but during the line dance the Decathlon team was doing (and how they all knew it, Michelle wasn't sure, she kept getting lost despite the simplicity of the steps) she was totally relaxed, despite everything. Despite the claustrophobia of the room, despite her awful dancing, despite the general worries she could never turn off in her brain the rest of the time. The alcohol probably helped, she admitted to herself. She'd had maybe the equivalent of a couple of drinks, and she was nowhere near drunk, barely even buzzed, but it was like the sharp, painful edges of the world had been muted and dulled so that they couldn't hurt her. That was okay by Michelle. She was having _fun. _And that was a good thing, too, because not long after Michelle had this revelation, Liz finally (should it be _finally?_ What time was it?) showed up. Without Peter.

"What the heck?" she shouted to Betty over the music, who somehow got her meaning.

"'Dad' talk," Betty shouted back. Oh, that made sense. They waved at Liz, who waved back but went to join some other friends in another corner of the room. Flash followed her, shouting,

"Yeah, I'm having a Halloween party next weekend, I think I'll go as Spider-Man…" that was all she heard before he and Liz were swallowed up by the crowd. Michelle almost choked on air. Flash as _Spider-Man?_ Oh man, oh man. If only he knew! She burst out laughing and couldn't stop. Ned and Betty watched her bemusedly.

"What's up?" Betty asked.

"I -," Michelle was laughing too hard to get the words out. "Never mind," she finally gasped when she could breathe again. "It's - no, never mind. Tell you later." Her two friends looked at each other and shrugged. Still holding back some giggles, Michelle turned - and then she saw Peter.

Ned waved. Betty waved. Michelle started to wave, then changed her mind, and gave him the finger instead.

"Michelle!"

"What? You're always saying I should play hard to get."

"Not like that!" Michelle rolled her eyes and turned away from Betty, watching Peter. He hadn't even waved back at them, instead heading straight for Liz. But not like he was blowing them off. More like...she didn't know. Something else. Peter said something to Liz, and then turned away. He was leaving.

Betty was watching her watch Peter.

"Something's wrong," she said to her. Betty nodded to Peter.

"So go after him." Michelle waited for the usual doubts and arguments to surface in her mind. When they didn't, she gave her purse to Betty and ran after Peter.

"Yo, Peter. Wait up!" Peter flinched in surprise. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. "Dude, what the heck? What's up with you and Liz?" Hmm, okay, not the most sensitive way to put it. Oh, well.

"I have to go," Peter said. Michelle blinked at him owlishly, the words passing through her brain without leaving any impression.

"Wait. You mean you're _leaving_ leaving?"

"I have to go," he said again. _Was that all he could say?!_ Michelle was suddenly furious.

"Of _course_ you do," she said caustically. Peter had started to turn to leave, but at those words he flinched and whipped back towards her.

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Michelle's whole body grew hot. A tiny voice in her head whispered, _wait, slow down, you don't need to get upset about this_, but it was squashed under a tsunami of other emotions - mostly anger and frustration.

"It means you abandon everybody, Peter! Your teammates, your friends - hell, you've wanted to go on a date with Liz since freshman year," - yeah, he though she didn't know about that, but she did - "and now that it's here you're leaving?!" Those were the words she was saying, but she what she was really saying was: _I hate that you're letting me down. I hate that you came here with Liz and not with me. I hate that things can't just be simple. _Peter's face was getting redder and redder now, probably much like her own.

"You don't understand, Michelle!" he shouted now, louder than before. "I know you think you know everything, but you don't!" Her eyes widened in disbelief and hurt, then narrowed again in anger. Peter knew how she felt about being called a know-it-all. He _knew _that.

"I understand a lot more than you think!" she shouted back, and as she said the words she abruptly realized what was actually happening. There was some sort of emergency, something that Peter had to go fight. Wasn't there? _Shit_, was that why? If that was it, then-

Michelle's train of thought screeched to a halt as she watched Peter's face. The anger disappeared like marker off of a white board, and was replaced by a calm mask of..._nothing._

"Have a nice night, Michelle," he said coldly. Before she could think of anything to say, he turned and sprinted down the hallway. Away. Out of sight.

Michelle was faintly aware of her mouth hanging open, aware of her back sliding against the wall as she sank to the floor, aware of the strains of music coming from the cafeteria - a slow song, _oh, the irony _\- but mostly, she was trying to figure out how everything had gone so wrong, so quickly.

_When it all goes south, I'll have no reservations about saying 'I told you so'. _Michelle swallowed hard as tears pricked at her eyes, the hallway blurring before her as she stared in the direction Peter had gone.

_Careful what you wish for. _


	12. Lost and Found

A/N: Hello lovely people! I'm really excited to share this chapter with you! I considered ending it on a cliffhanger…

(_in the background, PeterMj fan is sharpening their knife…)_

*nervous laugh*...but then I didn't! Hooray for you. ;)

(PS: I appreciate your dedication, taking 3 separate reviews to let me know what's coming!)

Alysscassandra: You're so sweet! Thank you!

Thank you so much to all of my supporters, and to my new supporters, jensen6, Adam C's Username, Elsie pond, shadowbella987, Lantias, and gaffa.

There was a guest who reviewed saying lovely things about my story - thank you - and they were the first person to mention the soundtrack, which really made my day! (I'm not sure if you're the same person who PMed me recently asking about creating a soundtrack for their own story?) Anyway, thank you! I've had no idea if anyone was actually listening to the soundtrack. :)

Also, I don't know if anyone's noticed, but my timeline has gone completely haywire. It is _2016 _in the story currently - I don't know what the heck I was doing before! But, eh, it's in an alternate universe anyway.

**Soundtrack **

Before October's Gone - Cimorelli

Goodbyes - Post Malone, Young Thug

This Is Halloween - The Citizens of Halloween

Walk Me Home - Pink

**Chapter 12: Lost and Found**

_October 27, 2016 (Wednesday)_

Michelle stared out the bus window at the drizzly rain. Not long after Homecoming, the autumn weather had turned from cool, crisp, and sunny to cold, grey, and wet. It suited Michelle's mood perfectly. And it was especially appropriate today, she thought, because today was Liz's final day at Midtown Tech, and tomorrow her final day in New York.

This was the problem with opening up and making friends. Eventually the people close to you would leave you, either on purpose, or because life or death called them away somewhere else. And it _hurt. _

At the next stop, Betty climbed into the bus and joined Michelle. They said hello, but overall, both girls were quiet. They'd known Liz a long time. Liz, who was always ready with an encouraging word or smile. Liz, who had always been there for Michelle, even during the years where she'd shut out the world. And, sure, it wasn't like they couldn't stay in touch through social media. But it wouldn't be the way it was before.

Michelle wished she could snap out of this funk she was caught in. Things were infinitely worse for Liz, after all. She and her friends were losing Liz, but Liz was losing _everyone_. And she was losing her father. Michelle knew something about that.

The morning passed in a dreary blur. Hanging over everything else in a grey storm cloud was this: Michelle hadn't spoken to Peter, nor he to her, for four days. Not a long silence by most people's standards, especially when you considered that their entire friendship had been on hiatus for nearly five entire years, once. But this was different.

It was just _different. _

* * *

It was time to say goodbye. She and a bunch of other friends and Decathlon teammates were at Liz's house for her going-away party, but now it was over. She'd dreaded this moment the entire week. As people said their goodbyes, Michelle hung back.

Finally, it was just her and Liz. Michelle bit her lip. She wasn't good at expressing how she felt, especially about other people, but there were things that needed saying, and she was out of time.

"I'm going to miss you," she said to Liz. "You were there for me when nobody else was - when I wouldn't _let _anyone else be - and, I, well..._thank you_." Liz smiled for maybe the first time that night.

"I'll miss you, too, Michelle. But I'll keep in touch! I promise. And I may be back soon enough - I'm looking at some schools nearby. Columbia, NYU…" Michelle grinned.

"That would be cool!" She followed Liz through the kitchen to the foyer, so she could start grabbing her stuff. "It's too bad you have to start over during your senior year, though." Liz shrugged lightly.

"It's not great, but...well, at least there's not too much time to get attached to anyone new before we all graduate, I guess." Liz stopped and turned to Michelle, frowning. "The biggest thing, really, is...my dad." She bit her lip anxiously. "He wants me to come visit him…" _in prison._ That was the unspoken end of her sentence. There were hundreds of rumors flying around the school as to what Liz's dad had done to get arrested, though Michelle knew better than to listen to any of them. Anyway, that wasn't the point.

"Do you want to go visit him?" Michelle asked neutrally.

"I don't know. I feel like, I feel like I should. And I feel like I should _want to_. But I don't want to." Michelle normally couldn't read people very well, but she could read the fear on Liz's face clear as day. She cleared her throat.

"My dad went to prison three years ago," she blurted out. Liz gave her a startled look. Her face warmed. She had never said those words aloud to _anyone _before. "My mom and I never visited him, because, well. He _did_ want us to. But he didn't want to change. He didn't want to...do what he needed to do to be part of our family again. And he did some terrible things."

"My dad did some terrible things…" Liz mused, looking more through Michelle than at her. "But I know he's sorry. I know he regrets what he did." She focused on Michelle now, asking a silent question.

"I know my dad is sorry," she answered. "But...he's not sorry _enough._ He thinks what happened isn't his fault. He always has some excuse. He has excuses for everything."

"How long has it been since you talked to him?" Liz asked. Michelle bit her lip.

"Maybe two years?" Liz sighed. Wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.

"I don't want to not-talk to my father for two years."

"My point is…" did she have a point? "...that it's okay if you're not ready to talk to your dad this very minute. You can take some time to...let things settle. Find a new normal. And when you do, maybe you can try again with him. The way you were talking, it sounds like maybe you'd regret it if you didn't try at all." Liz sighed again.

"Yeah." She wiped her eyes and smiled at Michelle. "Thanks for listening. For trusting me, and being someone I can trust." Michelle was stunned silent, touched. Before she could think of a reply, Liz nudged her with her shoulder.

"Keep Flash in line, now that I'm gone," she teased - only half-joking, they both knew.

"_Aww, _man!" Michelle scowled. "I didn't even think of that! And Decathlon!" Liz gave her a mischievous look.

"Oh, I'm not worried. I'm leaving it in good hands." She smiled at Michelle like they were sharing an inside joke, and Michelle smiled back, though she wasn't sure what Liz meant. They hugged tightly once more as Michelle got ready to leave, but it was okay. She knew that Liz was one of the few people who said that they would keep in touch and _meant _it. And Michelle would hold her to it.

"Oh, Michelle? Do me a favor?" Michelle tilted her head. "Make up with Peter."

"Seriously?!" she exclaimed. Liz should be angrier at Peter than Michelle was. He asked her out and promptly ditched her - at her last Homecoming! Liz shrugged.

"I don't really know what's going on with him, but I'm realizing now that life changes too fast to get angry over the little things." Michelle nodded in agreement. "And what's more, well, I don't know what you two will end up being to each other…" Michelle suppressed an eyeroll "...but I think you do need each other," Liz finished. "So give him a break, okay?" Michelle folded her arms but gave her half a smile.

"Fine," she said, which they both knew meant _yes_. One more hug goodbye and Michelle was in the driveway waiting for her mom to pull up.

_Your feelings can be seen from space _said Betty's voice in her head.

Hmmph.

* * *

The rest of the week passed quickly, if not easily. Peter and Michelle still weren't speaking to each other, much to the frustration of their friends. In the end it had only been Michelle sleeping over at Betty's after Homecoming.. Liz begged off, and Ned claimed he had a last minute family thing the next day, though Michelle had wondered if it actually had anything to do with Peter. And then she wondered if Peter and told Ned anything about their fight. If anything, Ned didn't seem to be taking sides in their fight. Betty, however…

Michelle squirmed uncomfortably, thinking about it. Though Betty was on _her _side, it still felt wrong. She had at least stopped glaring at Peter every time he entered the room. (Michelle was pretty sure that she realized if _Liz _was forgiving Peter, Liz who had the most to be angry about, then she herself had better lighten up) but she was still mad at him on Michelle's behalf. It didn't help that Michelle couldn't explain everything. It's not like she could say, _I think Peter ditched Liz at Homecoming to go fight crime as Spider-Man...and I think one of the criminals he was fighting was her father._

(That last part, she had squashed down into the deepest recesses of her brain. Not only did she already have more to think about than she could handle, but she owed it to Liz to mind her own business for once).

All of this was what Michelle was thinking about as she jogged through a corn maze, courtesy of Flash's Halloween party. Why did she agree to go to a party hosted by Flash, one could ask? Well, because he would hound her mercilessly if she didn't. Because, sadly, she didn't have anything better to do. And, having failed at finding a moment she could settle things with Peter during the week, she'd resorted to going to this party in the hopes that he would be here and they could get a moment to talk. Which was _stupid. _

_Have you not been paying attention? _her inner voice berated her. _Peter never comes to anything! That was the reason you were fighting in the first place!_ She could really be an idiot sometimes. To make matters worse, she, Ned, and Betty had teamed up in the race to solve the corn maze. She had intended to wander off only slightly, to give Betty some privacy with Ned...and had promptly gotten completely, _utterly _lost. Fan-freaking-tastic.

She wasn't worried, exactly. It was creepy to be in a cornfield, alone, in the dark (which she supposed was the point, it being Halloween and all), but she wasn't in danger or anything. Either she would find her way out, or someone would come find her.

It was of course at that moment that thunder rumbled overhead. _Oh, you want something to worry about? _the universe seemed to ask, taunting her. _Here you go!_

"_Awesome_," Michelle muttered sarcastically to no one in particular. She sped up now, which was difficult due to the uneven ground, but it was better than being alone in a corn maze in the rain. She rounded the next corner at a sprint, and two things happened in quick succession: one, her foot caught on a hidden root, twisting her ankle painfully, and two, she slammed into a wall.

"Holy crap," said a voice from above her as she slumped to the ground. "Are you okay?" Not a wall, then. A person. She reached up to take the hand they offered her, and almost fell back down again when she saw who it was: Peter. Michelle couldn't decide which of them was more surprised.

She'd spent at least an entire day thinking about what to say to Peter if she found him here, so naturally she found herself completely speechless. She got (a little painfully) to her feet.

"Sorry about that," Peter said softly before she could think of anything to say. "You, uh, came a little out of nowhere."

"Yeah," Michelle laughed a little nervously, "I was booking it and not paying attention at all. You're good." They studied each other warily for a moment, before Michelle couldn't take the tension anymore and looked away.

"I'm sorry," Peter blurted out, and Michelle's eyes snapped to his in surprise. She hadn't been sure they would get this far. "I shouldn't have said what I did, the other night. I went too far."

"Liz is the one you should say sorry to," she pointed out, before her brain screamed _shut up shut up and accept his apology! Idiot! _Peter rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"Yeah, I know. And I did. Apologize to her, I mean." She'd figured as much, since Liz had seemingly forgiven him, but it was good to hear. Liz was her friend, after all. Michelle took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, too," she said, and Peter looked surprised. "I made a humongous deal out of a small thing and blew it all out of proportion."

"It's okay," he said. A moment passed and they tentatively smiled at each other. "Anyway, for what it's worth - you were right. I do ditch you guys all the time. I need to find a balance, and, well...I'm going to try to do better."

"It's not healthy," Michelle said as gently as she could, "working all the time, never relaxing."

"I know. But...it's just really hard sometimes." She could only imagine. A work-life balance was hard enough to achieve without throwing crime-fighting into the mix - and knowing that if you were kicked back, relaxing, there were still potentially people in danger that needed your help. "So," Peter began tentatively when she didn't say anything, "Are we cool?"

"_I'm always cool!_" she exclaimed, striking an odd pose and throwing his own words back at him. He burst out laughing, and she grinned. He glanced around, as though noticing for the first time they were in a corn maze in the middle of the night.

"So...you know the way out of here?"

"Not even slightly," she replied honestly. He just shrugged.

"Cool. Onward, then!" He turned to continue the way Michelle had been going, and she made to follow him - and crashed back to the ground as her ankle throbbed and her knees buckled. _Bad idea. Ow, ow, ow._

"My ankle," she explained, wincing, when Peter turned to look at her. He knelt beside her on the muddy ground, brow furrowed in concern.

"Did I do that?" he asked. Michelle shook her head.

"Nah." She pointed at the root that had tripped her. "Evil corn plant." Peter smiled faintly, but he still looked worried. He reached to gently probe her ankle.

"Does it hurt when-" Michelle flinched hard. "Sorry, sorry!" He gave her a minute to breathe. "What do you want to do?"

Good question. It hurt to put weight on that foot, but they were in the middle of a cornfield, with seemingly nobody else nearby.

"I think I can make it if I take it slow," she said finally. Not much choice. He nodded gamely.

"Sure thing." He helped her get to her feet - more slowly, this time - and when she was up he wrapped his arm around her and shifted her weight so that she was mostly leaning on him.

_Peter's holding you,_ a tiny voice in her head whispered, sounding a lot like Betty.

_Shut up, brain._

But Michelle couldn't keep the small smile off her face. They finally found their way out of the stupid corn maze, managing to beat the rain, and Peter didn't let go of her once the entire time. Not even when they emerged from the corn field and Flash shouted,

"Ha, I think we can guess what took you two lovebirds so long!"

It was a good thing it was so dark, because if Peter could've seen Michelle's face at that moment, he would have known exactly how she felt.


	13. Chemistry

A/N: *Looks around in amazement* you're _still _here?! But seriously, I never intended to take such a long hiatus from this story. Between school and the COVID-19 chaos, I didn't have the time or inspiration for a long while, but now that I'm on vacation, I should have more of both! I have plans for this story and no intention of abandoning it permanently. Thank you to all of my supporters, and new supporters: Archangel Writings, Ademane, madsloth, beandream, FranciscA7, Rosehunt8, Samptor2, arthurddtanks21, Rastigo, CocoaMoon, , alextremo147, JubbaTheHatt4President, Natsu Firebreather, Mezula, Drakai, soul of the shadows, gen303, FDGamermi, munyoop3, Samptor2, SrChangeling1, Mallymarg, PastaShark000, Falco sparverius, Lt. Basil, Nealina, kbradley926, and Zahi05. I'm very flattered that some of you have started supporting me so recently even though I (whoops) haven't updated in ages!I plan to have more frequent updates this summer (well, the bar is low). I hope you're all staying safe and healthy during these chaotic and scary times!

**Soundtrack**

Freaking Me Out - Ava Max

Everybody Talks - Neon Trees

Je m'en fous - RIDSA

Break Up Every Night - The Chainsmokers

Big Plans - Why Don't We

**Chapter 13: Chemistry**

_November 5, 2016 (Friday)_

_This,_ thought Michelle, sitting rigidly in her chair, staring straight ahead, _this is how people die. _

Was it dramatic? Absolutely, yes. But ever since Ms. Robertson switched around the seating chart for chem lecture and put her next to Peter, her brain was filled with static. Which didn't even make sense. It wasn't as though she didn't spend time with him on a regular basis! But normally they were having a conversation, or doing something else that could distract her from her thoughts. Not so, here. She just had an uninterrupted hour to not-stare at him, breathe in his scent, and try not to explode from jitteriness.

Oh, and learn chemistry. But, really, who could learn in these conditions? Ms. Robertson probably thought she found her lectures fascinating, she was so wide-eyed and kept her gaze locked strictly on the board. She hadn't needed her morning coffee in, like, _a week. _If she actually tried to drink some before coming here, she'd probably throw up. (Not that Peter hadn't already seen _that_).

Ms. Robertson started in on some example problems, and the entire class subtly shifted, sitting up straighter. You didn't want to be caught sleeping, literally or figuratively, when she called on you.

Next to her, Peter shifted, and smiled at her when he caught her looking.

_Death, _Michelle thought. _Death, death, death, death, death-_

"Ms. Jones?"

"Nothing!" she yelped. The entire class burst out laughing. Her face warmed. Ms. Robertson raised an eyebrow.

"Since you've been so closely paying attention," again the class snickered, "Why don't you come up here and solve problem three?" Michelle pressed her lips together and stood up, trying to look unruffled, though her stomach was twisting. At the board, she took a deep breath. _Oh, thank God. _She knew what to do. Maybe she'd been paying more attention than she realized. She solved the problem, showing each step until she got the same answer Ms. Robertson had written on the board. She let out a small breath in relief.

"Hmm. Well done," said the teacher, though there was an undercurrent of _I'll be keeping an eye on you. _After that, Michelle forgot about Peter for the rest of the lecture, her brain forcing her to pay better attention. When the bell rang, everyone relaxed. It was a hard class. _Which was why she needed to focus!_

"So, Michelle," Peter started as they gathered up their bags. _Please, don't ask me what I was thinking about! _"What's with the sunglasses?" _Oh. _

"Flash-bang gone wrong," she replied. It wasn't a lie, but she didn't elaborate -he couldn't tell him why she was experimenting with lasers. He winced in sympathy.

"Did your mom freak?" They joined the horde of students streaming in the hallways, headed towards math.

"I didn't tell her," Michelle admitted, her stomach twisting again. She couldn't risk her mother confiscating her equipment. More and more lies and half-truths.

"Mmm," said Peter noncommittally, who'd had more than his share of hiding accidents from Aunt May - probably now more than ever, now that she thought about it.

"Hey, freak, what's with the sunglasses?!" Flash shouted as they passed him. Peter turned to confront him, and Michelle bumped his shoulder, discouraging him. "Blinded by my aura of awesomeness?"

Michelle scoffed. She rolled her eyes, though no one could see under the lenses. They marched right past Flash, not even glancing at him, and out of her peripheral vision he seemed to deflate a little. _Good. _

"Will Flash ever grow up?" Peter asked rhetorically as they crossed the cafeteria.

"Of course not," Michelle replied. "Some things in life are constant. The sky is blue, mystery meat should never be consumed, and Flash Thompson is an immature butt. He could age five years and not age a day." Peter snorted in agreement. They made it to math in the nick of time.

"Mr. Parker, Ms. Jones, how lovely of you to join us," Flash drawled in a poor imitation of Mr. Harris' voice.

"_Flash Thompson!_" Flash jumped about a foot in the air at Mr. Harris' - the _real_ Mr. Harris - voice. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

"No, sir!" Flash replied hastily in his regular voice. Michelle kept the smirk off her face, but internally she was chanting _ooh, yeah, Flash is zero for two!_ Michelle took off her sunglasses - they weren't allowed in the classroom. Her eyes met Peter's from across the room and they both suppressed grins before looking away. As Mr. Harris turned to the board, Betty leaned over.

"What was that look about?"

"What look?" Michelle murmured, eyes ahead of her as she took out her notebook.

"That _look _between you and Peter, that wasn't just about Flash!"

"Of course it was! Do you really think-"

"Something you'd like to share with the whole class, Michelle?" Mr Harris interrupted their whispering, which had grown steadily louder despite their efforts.

"_Uh_-" this wasn't her fault this time! "Betty has a question about logarithmic functions," she threw her friend under the bus.

"Oh! Go on, then, Betty." Betty couldn't openly glare at Michelle, but she slid down in her seat nonetheless.

"Um...I, um," Betty stalled. Mr. Harris smiled encouragingly.

"Don't be shy," he exclaimed. "If you have a question, chances are someone else is wondering the same thing."

"I was wondering...why can't you invert the log rule of division and get the same answer?" Betty blurted out finally.

"Ah, excellent question! You see-" Mr. Harris turned back to the board and Betty gave Michelle her best Death Glare. She bit her lip guiltily but gave her friend a cheeky smile. That was what you got for being nosy. Peter grinned at both of them, having seen the whole exchange, and Betty rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

"...and that's why triangles have three points!" Mr. Harris finished, and the trio blanched. Clearly their teacher had once again gone on a long, only slightly relevant tangent. Oh, well.

The lesson proceeded as normal for the next half an hour, until they broke into teams. Which was when Peter, on his way to another table, stopped and leaned towards her.

"You know, I think I've corrupted you," he whispered.

"You..._uh_..." well, _now _she was dead. Dead, dead, dead. At least Peter hadn't been expecting a coherent reply. Betty took one look at her face and sighed.

"Okay, _now _what just happened?"

* * *

As the last bell rang, Michelle sighed in relief. It seemed to her lately that the day either flew by so fast that she had scarcely arrived at school before she was leaving it, or passed so slow that an afternoon felt like a couple of days, and today was the latter. She still had Decathlon practice, which was always fun, though they hadn't had a practice since Nationals and would take a while to settle into a new normal without Liz. And she had reached her quota for Weird Peter moments today, in her mind, even though she would, for a lack of a better term, have to deal with his stupid face at practice, if he didn't ditch them. Speaking of which…

"Guess what?" Peter said, eyes gleaming and mouth curling up in that half smirk he wore when he knew something she didn't. Now, Michelle had (eventually) figured out that the question 'Guess what?' was nearly always rhetorical, but most of the time that didn't stop her from answering.

"You've decided to quit school and become a mime," she replied with a straight face. She held in a snicker as Peter blinked in surprise.

"What?" His expression combined with his tone of voice was too much for Michelle, who couldn't control her own facial expression anymore as Peter rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's exactly it, Michelle, I'm becoming a mime. Where do you even _get _this stuff?" Michelle raised her nose in the air and sniffed haughtily.

"My brilliant mind is too advanced for your puny brain to comprehend, Peter Parker."

"_Suuure, _okay, let's go with that." He mumbled something under his breath that she was 67% sure involved questioning her sanity, but she had just remembered that he originally had some sort of news for her.

"So, are you gonna tell me what's up, or should I keep guessing?"

"Nooo, no more guessing!" His face turned abruptly serious and her heart dropped nervously. "I heard," he said, lowering his voice and leaning in closer, "That _Flash_ is going to be the new Decathlon captain." Her jaw dropped in dismay. If Flash was becoming captain, she would just have to 'pull a Peter', as some of their classmates were calling it, and quit the team! Competitions be damned. She told him as much. Peter pouted. "That's not fair! You know I'm very busy with the internship!" In the back of her mind Michelle wondered if there was always that slight hesitation in his voice before the word 'internship'. "Plus, if you quit the team, Flash is going to think he drove you away," Peter pointed out as they rounded the corner. Michelle wrinkled her nose. It would be true, but...well, it wasn't really worth thinking about since they both knew that Michelle would never quit the team on a whim. When they arrived at the library Michelle saw that they were the last students to arrive, though Mr. Harris wasn't there yet. They sat down across from each other and Michelle pulled out her binder to start organizing her notes. They didn't have to wait long before Mr. Harris arrived with their Decathlon trophy.

"Congratulations, Decathlon national champions!" he exclaimed, and everyone clapped. They were a good team and usually highly ranked, but taking Nationals was still a big deal. "I'm gonna have to put this back in the trophy case soon but, just for motivation right now at this practice. I'm a little ahead of the game but we will need a new team captain next year-" Michelle could see Flash's poorly hidden smirk, _that irritating little_ \- "So I am appointing...Michelle!"

"_Yay!_" Ned exclaimed as everyone clapped - even Flash, though he looked supremely unhappy about it. You could have knocked her over with a feather.

"_Ah..._thank you!" she managed when she got over her surprise. "My-my friends call me M.J." Peter raised an eyebrow at that last part, and Michelle was pretty sure she was blushing. He knew full well that she hadn't let anyone call her that in years - it was always her father's nickname for her. She hadn't quite planned to blurt that last part out, but she'd been thinking about Liz, and Liz's dad, and _her _dad, and well, maybe it was time.

"I thought you didn't have any friends," Ned raised his eyebrows at her, and even though he was just teasing and they had been friends for _months_ (hey, two months was _months_) she was blushing again. A lot had changed in a short amount of time.

"I didn't," she said haltingly. Ooh, she was going to get him for that later. Before the moment could become too awkward, Peter's cell buzzed. Michelle's/M.J.'s eyebrows lifted. _Here we go…_

"I, ah, I gotta go," Peter mumbled as he reached for his bag. _Uh huh._

"Hey, where are you going," Michelle demanded abruptly. On the one hand, if this is what she thought it was she should probably let it alone, but on the other hand, she was Michelle Jones and it would be weird if she didn't say anything. Go big or go home. She put her hands on the table and leaned towards him, squinting suspiciously. "What are you hiding, Peter?" Open-mouthed, Peter was pointing his free hand away from him, trying to think of something to say. Man, for someone who had (probably) tons of secrets, he was a _terrible _liar. She let him off just as abruptly, "Just kidding, I don't care. Bye!" She waved at him and without pausing she continued, "All right, so we should run some drills…" she had to force herself not to look after Peter as he left, and really, she did have more pressing things to think about at the moment. Practice went shockingly smoothly. While she didn't have Liz's natural leadership (yet), she was liked well enough by most of the team, so maybe she shouldn't have been surprised. She had been hoping to become captain eventually, her senior year if not her junior year, and she was flattered that Mr. Harris had chosen her as a sophomore even though there were older students on the team that could've taken Liz's place.

Now she just had to figure out how to keep Flash from giving her too much crap. And how to get Peter to show up.

* * *

Later that night, after dinner (her mom had taken her, Betty, and Ned out to eat to celebrate her making captain, though Peter was conspicuously _absent_) Michelle was in her room, texting with Liz and finishing up her _project. _Her phone buzzed:

LIZ: CONGRATULATIONS! ;) Michelle grinned. After practice she had remembered her last in-person conversation with Liz.

MICHELLE: THANK YOU FOR THE RECOMMENDATION :)_. _Liz sent a bunch of smiley emojis back. She smiled and turned back to her desk, packaging up her invention. Sending this in the mail was probably not super safe, but whatever. What else was she supposed to do? Her phone buzzed again.

LIZ: SO, IN OTHER NEWS, I VISITED MY DAD LAST WEEK. Michelle arched her eyebrows.

MICHELLE: HOW DID IT GO?

LIZ: IT WAS...WEIRD. NOT GOOD, BUT NOT BAD. BETTER THAN I EXPECTED, I GUESS. Michelle sighed. It really wasn't a good situation, though she was glad it hadn't been too bad.

LIZ: HAVE YOU THOUGHT MORE ABOUT TRACKING DOWN YOUR FATHER?

Her stomach dropped. It wasn't a weird question, she had mentioned that to Liz, but... she froze as the memory of the first and _only _time she and her mom attempted to visit her father. It hadn't gone well. And what if - _bzzzzz._

LIZ: SORRY, I DIDN'T MEAN TO PRY. IT'S YOUR BUSINESS, OBVIOUSLY. Michelle picked up her phone again and texted back

_MICHELLE: NO, IT'S OKAY, IT'S JUST...I DON'T KNOW, MY DAD WAS PRETTY UNSTABLE BACK IN THE DAY. That was one word for it. I THINK IT'S SOMETHING MY MOM AND I WILL HAVE TO TALK ABOUT TOGETHER. _

_LIZ: I UNDERSTAND. YOU'LL BE READY WHEN YOU'RE READY. _Actually, Michelle wasn't sure she'd ever be ready, but she appreciated the sentiment.

MICHELLE: :)

LIZ: :)

Her invention packaged up, she turned to her computer to type the note.

DEAR SPIDER-BUTT, she wrote. YOU DO A DECENT JOB OF PROTECTING THE CITY AND FIGHTING CRIME, AND I INVENTED SOMETHING I THINK YOU COULD USE. IT'S A FLASH-LASER - LIKE A FLASH-BANG, BUT TARGETED SO THAT YOU CAN DIRECT IT AT YOUR ENEMIES AND NOT BE BLINDED YOURSELF. I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO BLINDLY TRUST TECH PEOPLE SEND YOU IN THE MAIL, SO TEST IT OUT. TRY NOT TO BLOW UP. AND THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DO. Yes, that was fine, she decided. She had written several versions of this letter already and hadn't liked any of them, but this was good enough. _SINCERELY,_ she paused. She couldn't write her own name. And signing it 'Anonymous', though perhaps smarter, seemed too creepy. She thought for a moment, and smirked as an idea came to her.

SINCERELY, MKΔT.


	14. Tony Stark

A/N: Not my best chapter, and a little on the short side, but actually there are a couple of things here that will be important later. I hope to get the next chapter out relatively soon, but I'm in the middle of a pretty challenging CAD class, so we'll see!

Thanks so much to all of my supporters, and new supporters CocoaMoon, Elpis21, illexink, MocheXD, Bbbeqrocks, Surlana, PaperTick242212, melbell21, stlupin, and Mercm3! I never imagined I would have this many favorites/follows/views, even taking into account that Marvel is a much bigger fanverse than most of those I've written for in the past!

And because I can't PM, Alysscassandra thank you so much for your continued kindness and support!

**Soundtrack**

Quirky Worky Song - DannyJacob

Alarm - Anne Marie

A Thousand Bad Times - Post Malone

Hello Seattle - Owl City

Supalonely - BENEE, Gus Dapperton

**Chapter 14: Tony Stark**

A little over a month had passed since Michelle had mailed her first (functioning) invention to Spider-Man, and she wasn't sure he had gotten any use out of it, but nonetheless she continued inventing. She had sent a second invention a few days ago, in fact. But today's experiment was not about Spider-Man, _per se_ (though he was probably in the garage with her. Now that was a weird thought).

"Now pour in the hydrogen peroxide slowly, and immediately take off the heat," Peter read from the lab manual. They were in Michelle's garage, working on an extra-credit assignment for chemistry a few days before Winter Break would start.

"Pouring in the hydrogen peroxide," she murmured without looking at him, focused on the beakers before her. She had just finished pouring when Peter's gasp made her look up. Her head snapped up and she had to suppress a gasp of her own. _Tony Stark?_ What was he doing standing at the end of her driveway on a Saturday afternoon, staring down the both of them? Michelle could think of a few reasons, and all of them made her sweat. Peter's poorly masked anxiety wasn't helping matters, either. Though the teens were distracted for only a few seconds, it was long enough that they forgot about one important thing:

_BOOM! _The beaker holding the hydrogen peroxide mixture had exploded due to the heat, and Michelle and Peter were both thrown backwards from the blast.

Michelle spent an uncomfortable minute sprawled on the pavement, gasping like a fish out of water. She wasn't hurt too badly, but her ears were ringing and she'd gotten the air knocked right out of her. When she sat up, she was treated to the bizarre sight of Tony Stark, in a formal suit, spraying what was left of their experiment with a fire extinguisher.

"You know, exploding things in your garage really lowers the property value," he said conversationally as he sprayed more white foam on their now-ruined project. All without getting a drop on his suit. She blinked once, hard.

Before she could even begin to think of a response to that, her eardrums were assaulted for a second time:

"_MICHELLE JONES!"_ She suppressed a groan and turned around.

"Hello, Mrs. Adams," she said, trying and failing for a cheery tone of voice. Old Felicity Adams had been their neighbor since before Michelle was born, _at least_, and in all that time Michelle couldn't remember one pleasant conversation they'd had together.

(Which, surely, had nothing to do with the fact that she'd started performing loud, messy, and yes, sometimes exploding, backyard experiments not long after she'd learned how to talk. Nope, not at all).

"EXPLODING THINGS IN THIS LOVELY NEIGHBORHOOD!" she screeched now, and Michelle suddenly wished her ears had kept ringing a little longer. "WHY, I OUGHT TO CALL THE POLICE ON YOU, YOUNG LADY, OH, YES-" Michelle's eyes widened, but before she could start placating the elderly woman, Peter dusted himself off and waved to her.

"Hello, Mrs. Adams!" he said brightly, shooting her a winning smile. "How are you?"

LIke magic, the old lady's sour expression was replaced by a warm smile.

"Oh, hello, Peter, dear, how are you? I've been doing fine, you're so sweet to ask. Of course, I was doing better before the _explosions_, mind you."

"And we are _so sorry _about that," Peter apologized earnestly, an expression of perfect innocence and remorse on his face. "We're trying to earn a little extra credit for chemistry class, and, well, I'm afraid things got out of hand. We never intended to disrupt anyone's day."

"Yes, well," Mrs. Adams stalled, her adoration of Peter warring over her dislike of Michelle. It would be funny to watch her waver back and forth if the situation wasn't so serious, Michelle thought. "You should just be sure to be more careful in the future," she said finally, and Michelle's shoulders relaxed. They wouldn't really get in trouble with the police, but it was still better not to have them involved.

"Oh, we certainly will!" Peter beamed at her again, and Michelle had to resist rolling her eyes.

"Oh, I know you!" Mrs. Adam's eyes snapped suddenly to Tony Stark, who had been silently watching the proceedings with mirth in his eyes.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," he replied, nodding to her.

"Yes, I know you...you're that superhero, aren't you? Tin Man!" she exclaimed. Michelle burst out coughing in an attempt to not laugh, and behind her, Peter had turned away to hide his face, shoulders shaking. _Tin Man?!_

"Iron-Man," Tony Stark corrected Mrs. Adams politely, and Michelle was in awe of his poker face. Did he give lessons?

"Oh, of course. My apologies. Are you here to rein these two..._teenagers_ in?" she asked, while glaring only at Michelle.

"Oh, yes, ma'am. You'll have nothing to worry about," he replied airily. Mrs. Adams beamed.

"Wonderful! Well, it was nice to meet you, and nice to see you, Peter, dear," she said before going back inside. Michelle supposed that Mrs. Adams ignoring her was a better reaction than usual, considering. However, her relief didn't last long.

Her mother's car was turning into the driveway, an hour and a half earlier than they'd expected...and though she had had permission to perform a chemistry experiment, she well knew that blowing up the garage was _not _included in that deal. Shit. _Out of the frying pan; into the fire. _

Her mother parked her car on the street and got out, mouth hanging open in shock. Michelle winced and closed her eyes. _Here it comes…_

"You're Tony Stark!" Claire exclaimed instead, and Michelle's eyes flew open. _Oh, boy. _Her mother had a bit of a...let's call it a _celebrity crush_, on Tony Stark. This just kept getting better and better.

"Yes!" she interjected before her mother could start gushing like a fangirl. "Peter works for Mr. Stark, remember?!" Actually, Michelle wasn't sure she'd ever told her mother that, but it was enough to snap the older woman out of it.

"Oh, er, yes, of course!" her mom smiled, flustered, but recovered quickly, offering her hand to Stark. "I'm Claire Jones, Michelle's mother. It's a pleasure to meet you." _You have no _idea _how much, _Michelle thought, sniggering inwardly.

"I stopped by to pick up Peter," Stark said. "Something came up at work, and I could use the help." Translation: there was crime-fighting to be done. At least he wasn't here about her identity as MKΔT. "The kids will just have to finish their experiment another time," he continued. Oh, right, there was still the tiny problem of _having blown up her garage. _Michelle cringed as her mother took in the ruined experiment and the messy garage, her eyes widening in dismay. She was toast. However, since she wasn't alone, all that her mother said was,

"Oh, _Michelle._ I thought we agreed that you wouldn't do any more dangerous experiments at the house."

"I know. I'm really sorry, Mom." She bit back on her childish impulse to blame Peter. Sure, his job was to remove the chemicals from the heat, but both of them were equally responsible for the safety of the experiment, and besides, she knew better than to choose an experiment this dangerous to perform at home. Her mother sighed but, since they had company, dropped the subject for now.

"We should get going, Peter," Stark interjected. Pete nodded.

"I'll just grab my stuff." Peter and Michelle had wisely kept their backpacks and other school books in the house - a good thing, since they would've been damaged by the explosion.

"Sure you can't stay and talk my mom down?" Michelle half-asked, half-pleaded. Peter frowned apologetically.

"I don't mean to leave you hangin', but Mr. Stark doesn't take 'no' for an answer." Michelle sighed.

"I figured not." Peter gathered up his things and the two teens made their way back outside. Michelle cringed internally at the starstruck expression on her mother's face. She _sort _of understood it, but...no, no she didn't understand it.

"Okay, bye you two! Thanks for stopping by!" her mother chirped as Tony Stark and protege left their (trashed) driveway. Once the car pulled out, her mother's schoolgirl expression vanished to be replaced by _The Look_. Michelle's shoulders slumped.

"Michelle -"

"I know!"

"Well, if you 'know'," her mother made finger quotes, "then why does this keep happening?" Michelle bit her lip. She had to be maturely honest and take responsibility, but not _so _honest that she got into even more trouble.

"It should have gone perfectly if we hadn't missed one little step," she began, and her mother's face darkened. She rushed on, "But then, at a critical moment, Tony Stark startled Peter, which startled me…" she trailed off as her mom's face relaxed slightly. That was a good sign.

"I know you two try to be as careful as possible, I do. But I really think that from now on you need to either use the school laboratories, choose more mundane experiments, or have some professional supervision - or actually, a combination of all three of those." Michelle didn't feel like they could do any of those things - the school labs were always full, with priority given to upperclassmen, teachers didn't have many office or lab hours, and more 'mundane' experiments, as her mother put it, would be too basic and couldn't provide enough of a challenge - but she nodded vigorously. She'd messed up regardless, and it was clear they needed to figure _something _out. It was too bad that they couldn't split up experiments between her place and Peter's, but Aunt May's small apartment was even less suited to chemistry than their garage. Which, considering the current state of said garage, was saying something. She pulled on gloves and started to gather cleaning materials as her mother continued on a slight tangent about Michelle's exploits and Tony Stark ('You know, dear, it wouldn't be the worst thing for you to get some professional supervision for your work, the way Peter's doing' and 'My, that Tony Stark is something. Most celebrities aren't as attractive in real life, but _that man_-'). She tried to tune most of it out while still appearing as though she was paying attention, a skill that all high school students learn to master. "Have you ever thought about that, dear?" Michelle made a noise between a snort and a cough.

"Have I ever thought about how much Tony Stark must work out to keep that 'bod'?" she made finger quotes. "Can't say I have. I think I'm a little too young to be his type," she quipped. Her mother's exasperated stare must have mirrored the looks she gave Peter and Ned every day.

"No! Have you ever thought about getting an internship like the one Peter has?" Michelle blinked. Not only had that thought legitimately _never _occurred to her, but if she was right about Peter's double life, well, she certainly didn't have the _qualifications_ that Peter did, whether they were talking about his genius or...the other thing.

"Peter's kind of a special case," she replied. _Massive understatement_. "I'm not sure, knowledge- and ability-wise, I would have as much to offer as he does."

"Nonsense!" her mother pshawed. "I don't know any other student your age, _including _Peter, that has as much intelligence and talent to cultivate as you do."

"You're supposed to say that," Michelle argued, dumping broken glass into the trash can. "You're my mother." Her mom was too mature to physically roll her eyes, but Michelle imagined she was doing it internally.

"Promise me you'll at least think about it," her mother insisted.

"I'll think about it," Michelle agreed easily. She still didn't think it was a reasonable idea, but she would think about it.

"Good." Claire turned to go inside. "Now, if you do a good job cleaning, there just might be pizza for dinner." she winked. Michelle smiled. Her mother was really very cool, and she knew she wasn't the easiest kid to deal with.

As she cleaned, Michelle pondered her mother's internship idea. Internships were usually for college students, at least in the fields that she was interested in. At Midtown Tech, lots of graduating seniors had internships lined up for their first summer before college, but anything earlier was rarely heard of - that was one reason why Peter's internship, especially a _Stark internship_, had been such a big deal. And at 15 years old, Michelle wasn't old enough to work most jobs - though, come to think of it, neither was Peter! Evidently some strings had been pulled there, which only lent more credence to her recent suspicions… her mind was whirring. As she wiped fire extinguishing foam from the garage wall, Michelle snorted at what could happen if she also got an internship working for Tony Stark. That was all they needed!


	15. Fathers' Days

A/N: Hello everyone! I hope you're all staying safe, healthy and sane during these crazy times! I'm really pleased with this chapter; it was incredibly difficult to get started but once I did I couldn't stop, and suddenly I had 2000 more words than usual. I'm not cutting it, it's a big (in the sense of _important_) chapter anyway, and it would ruin the flow of things (you'll see). So you all get an extra-long chapter as a present for being such wonderful people ;) Aaaaand speaking of wonderful people, thank you to all of my supporters and reviewers, and new supporters CookieBeast12, Bashinitoo, Kronahlot, MrGilborg, PaperTick242212, Alphajaguar, FlowerID, MrDiddlez25, romanovascap, Mollymanatee, and ColdSummerDays. I recently reached **100 followers (!) **on this story, which is just incredible, and when I posted chapter 14 last time this officially became my longest story (though I was already there on words tbh). You're all amazing! Also, completely unrelated, but I only just realized while writing this chapter that I called Peter's father 'Owen' in the first chapter of this story, which was obviously a mistake. Clearly I was mistaking Peter for another orphaned teenager with supernatural powers (though, sorry Luke Skywalker, Peter beats you hands-down). ;)

**Soundtrack: 30 minutes**

Wanted - OneRepublic

Bright - Echosmith

This Isn't The End - Owl City

Hard Sometimes - Ruel

I Got You - Leona Lewis

Not All Heroes Wear Capes - Owl City

Saturday Nights - Khalid

Lose Somebody - Kygo, OneRepublic

**Chapter 15: Fathers' Days**

Life was chugging along relatively peacefully, for a while. Between school, Decathlon, inventing, and spending time with her friends, the days and weeks seemed to stream together. Michelle, Peter, Betty, and Ned were a nice solid group - not that they weren't before, but Michelle didn't question it anymore. Well, not much - nothing was _happening_ between her and Peter, nor between Betty and Ned, but that was okay. Ish. It wasn't that Michelle was interested. In fact, she was _way _too interested, in her opinion. Life was way simpler when Peter Parker was just the goofy kid on her street, and nothing more (though if she was being _really _honest with herself, he had _always _been more than that). Sometimes it didn't bother her at all. Other times it drove her crazy.

Right now as one of those times.

"What are you even waiting for?" Betty asked her one day, lying across Michelle's bed, upside-down.

"What are _you _waiting for?" Michelle countered, shaking her hair as she took out her ponytail. "I don't see you pursuing Ned in any way." Betty swung up into a sitting position, pausing as all the blood rushed away from her head, and replied loftily,

"This isn't about me, young M.J. This is about _you_." Michelle rolled her eyes.

"That's convenient," Michelle quipped as she joined Betty on the bed. "Also, I'm older than you."

"Details, details," Betty waved her off. She was sleeping over at Michelle's house the weekend before their next round of midterms would start, under the guise of 'studying', but really, they were enjoying what would be their last hours of freedom for a bit. Hey, they were nerds, but they couldn't study all the time. Michelle thought about Betty's question as she shuffled through some movies, deciding what to watch. What was she waiting for? In some ways, the answer was simple: the whole Spider-Man thing. Michelle didn't _care_ about that, per se - it wouldn't change her opinion or her attraction at all - but it was a pretty big thing to be in the dark about, even for a potential high school relationship. But she couldn't say that to Betty.

"If you're waiting for him to grow up, or take initiative, you'll be waiting a while," Betty advised her, now laying spread-eagle on the carpet.

"Well, _duh_," Michelle snorted. In some ways, Peter was the most mature, take-charge guy she knew, and in other ways, he was..._not_. "Everybody knows girls mature faster than guys." It was Betty's turn to snort.

"Too true." They finally selected a movie to watch (Michelle had vetoed all of Betty's rom-com choices, she wasn't in the mood for that at all despite Betty's insistence that her current romantic turmoil made it the _best _time to watch one) but Michelle was still thinking about things.

"You know," she said about halfway through the movie, "Even if Peter and I have mutual feelings for each other -"

"_You do!_"

"-And we decided to be in a relationship," she continued, ignoring Betty and pushing on, "even if we were going to be a thing, when would we have time to actually go on a date? We're both so busy." Betty rolled her eyes.

"First of all, you _make _time. Just like you both make time for friends now, but instead of platonic friends, it's just the two of you. Perhaps doing what you normally do, but...I don't know, _sharing _more." She flipped around to steal a package of gummy worms right out of Michelle's hands. _Rude._

"Second of all," Betty went on, munching her stolen goods, "No offense, but you and Peter aren't going to be, like a _normal _couple." Michelle wasn't sure whether to frown at her bluntness or smile at her certainty that she and Peter would, one day, be a couple. "You're both too weird - and I say that in the most loving way possible!" Betty added hastily as Michelle scowled. "I mean, that's just how you are. Neither of you have ever been normal, so why would you start now?" Michelle lay back and thought about that. A part of her felt that she should be offended, but the rest of her knew that that was pointless. Honestly, most of the time, if someone said that Michelle were 'normal', she would have either been insulted or would have replied that 'normal' was only an abstract concept, and not something one could actually be. There was no such thing as 'normal', so it would be silly to get worked up about it now.

"I guess you're right," Michelle conceded, stealing her gummy worms back from Betty.

"Of _course_ I'm right," Betty flipped her hair. "Now, can we please watch this movie you conned me into?" It was Michelle's turn to roll her eyes. _Big Hero 6 _was a great movie and they both knew it.

"As you wish, Your Highness," Michelle handed the remote to Betty with a flourish, and they finished the movie and talked about relatively inconsequential things the rest of the night.

Later, Michelle was falling asleep, Betty on the floor next to her bed, when Betty said, "Hey, Michelle?"

"Mmm?"

"You know, I don't think I'm super interested in Ned anymore." In the dark, Michelle raised her eyebrows.

"Oh?" She had kind of gotten that vibe, but Betty's crush on Ned had always seemed so much less obvious than her crush on Peter - though perhaps that was because Michelle wasn't a spectator to her own thoughts.

"I'm sort of interested in someone else…" Betty continued. Pause. "Um, I was thinking about asking Megan Avery on a date." Michelle raised her eyebrows even higher. This was a bit out of left field, not that she minded in any way, of course - although, no, maybe not so surprising, thinking about some of the observations she'd made before she and Betty had become friends. Hmm.

"Ohh, _phew_," she replied, filing those thoughts away for later. "Here I was worried you were going to tell me that you were interested in Flash." There was another brief pause before -

_THUMP. _"Oww," Michelle complained as a pillow whacked her in the head.

"You're the worst!" Betty exclaimed, but it wasn't so dark in Michelle's room that she couldn't see Betty smiling. Good. She narrowly dodged a second hurled pillow. "You're the actual worst, Michelle Jones!"

"I'm not the one with the weapons, Betty Brandt," Michelle joked, totally kidding because she had baited Betty into it. That was the whole point. They both lay down again.

"So what do you think?" Betty asked. _About which part?_ Michelle thought, but she went with the simplest answer.

"I think you should ask her out."

"Really?"

"Um, _yeah,_" Michelle said in a _duh _tone. "You should go for it." She didn't know much about Megan Avery - didn't know her sexuality, either - but she knew Megan was the type of person who would let Betty down kindly and respectfully if the feelings weren't mutual.

"Oh. Um. Good. Okay, then." Betty was silent again. "Night, Michelle," she said finally.

"Night."

Both girls fell asleep smiling.

* * *

So yes, things were good. But all good things come to an end, one day. And _that_ day started as most other days did, completely ordinary. She woke up, drank coffee, went to school, went to class. Took a test, went to lunch, ignored Flash, prevented Peter from beating up Flash. Back to class. Etcetera. But at 2:08 that afternoon, the secretary's voice crackled over the loudspeaker: "Michelle Jones, please report to the principal's office." Flash yelled,

"_Ooohh_," like a fifth-grader, which would have been more annoying if her friends hadn't been mockingly doing the same thing. She rolled her eyes at them all, grabbed her bag, and left the room. She had no idea why she'd been called down there, and she wasn't too concerned. She was thinking about how she'd done on that morning's test, and whether Betty would actually ask Megan out (and if she'd say yes), and what drills she was going to run at Decathlon practice today. And, okay, yes, she was thinking about the way Peter smiled at her earlier, which was totally pathetic.

All of these thoughts came to a screeching halt when she got to the office and saw her mother's stricken face. She was trying to be strong for Michelle, and _losing_. Her stomach dropped. What _happened? _Claire Jones made one last attempt to compose her face before she blurted out,

"Oh, Michelle - it's - it's your father."

* * *

Michelle rested her head on the car window, staring at everything but seeing nothing as her mother drove them home. Both of them were almost...numb. It was like she didn't feel anything, or didn't know how to feel. She had, relatively speaking, only just begun to entertain the idea of having her father in her life again, and now...oh God. She hadn't spoken to him in over two years, and _she never would again. _She simultaneously flushed hot and cold, slumping down in her seat involuntarily. Her mother glanced over, concerned.

"Do you need me to pull over?" Michelle blinked, hard.

"Yes - no - keep driving." Her mother kept driving and Michelle closed her eyes. She had never grieved for someone before, not like this. Were the mood swings always so _abrupt_? And over the next few weeks she found that yes, yes they were.

* * *

Part of it was trying to come to terms with _how _her father had died. A prison riot was undoubtedly a terrible way to go - and besides that, she was so _angry. _Obviously angry at the person or people who killed her father, but also angry at _him_ \- for so many things. For refusing to get help and take his meds in the first place, when he started having violent outbursts and mistreating Michelle's mother. And for refusing to wake up and smell the coffee once he landed in prison, saying all the right things to Michelle and her mom but never following through, getting into fights, losing his visitor privileges, and always playing the victim and blaming everyone but himself, until over time they hadn't talked in years. And thinking about all of that made Michelle feel so guilty at the same time - you shouldn't be mad at someone who was dead, and what if _she _had tried harder? She would never know, and she would get mad all over again when she remembered how little time her father actually had left in prison - less than three months. Him getting out would've been, well, somewhat frightening and anxiety-inducing, actually, but if he'd made it till then - what? It wasn't like he would come home and they'd be a family again, Michelle wasn't _that _naive. But maybe...maybe...Michelles thoughts would go in circles this way for days, weeks, more than a month.

Part of it was, she and her mom weren't really grieving the man that had died. They were grieving her father as he'd been several years ago, before the rage and violence and prison, they were grieving for a person that hadn't existed for quite some time. And though Michelle had heard of the five stages of grief, she never realized that people could go through all five stages in a matter of minutes or hours before looping around again. Sometimes she'd be sitting in class or out doing errands and feeling perfectly fine, and then she'd smell something or see something or hear a song that reminded her of her father - all these little moments she hadn't really let herself think about for years - and she'd be set off again. It was exhausting.

Thank God for her friends. Not just Liz, who was the main person she'd discussed her father with these past few months, or Peter, who most understood grieving among the people in their group, but Betty and Ned helped balance her out and made her feel normal, even if it was only momentary. Because for the first month, month and a half after her father died, she was mainly going through the motions. She was doing just enough in school to get decent grades, nothing more, and she was barely doing anything for Decathlon at all (though that was all right, since Mr. Harris was very understanding and since Nationals was already long done anyway). In the back of her mind she wondered how she would've coped if Peter hadn't brought her out of her loner ways, months ago. It wouldn't be pretty, that she knew.

One bright spot in all this darkness was that Liz came to visit over Thanksgiving break, as they had planned before her father died. And for that weekend, she, Betty, and Liz meandered around New York City, talking about anything and everything _except _absent fathers, and it was wonderful. But when Liz left, Michelle sank down deep again.

She hadn't _really _talked to anyone about her father since he died, except to explain the basics of what happened, of course, and _apparently _that was a problem. Because one day out of the blue, while they were driving home from school, her mother said,

"Michelle, sweetheart -", and stopped abruptly. Michelle whipped her head around to look at her. This couldn't be good.

"What?!" she asked urgently when her mom didn't say anything else.

"Have you thought about, you know, talking to someone?" Claire asked, in a tone Michelle recognized, the one that meant that she wouldn't like whatever her mother had to say. "About your father? You should have someone to, you know, open up to…" she trailed off as it became clear that Michelle wasn't going to say anything. How could her mother think this was a good idea? She hadn't been to mental health counseling since her father first went to prison and Michelle got stuck talking to that _awful_ child psychiatrist. She'd refused to go back after the first two sessions. It wasn't happening, no siree. She turned and looked steadfastly out the window, away from her mother. Claire cleared her throat and pulled a business card out of her purse.

"I'd just like you to give it some thought, that's all." Michelle's eyes darted to the card - _Dr. Natasha Williams _\- and then away again. She couldn't bring herself to say anything.

Well, that was the whole problem, wasn't it?

* * *

A couple of days later, Michelle was standing in front of her locker after school, staring into space and thinking about everything and nothing, when Peter came up to her. He looked pretty lost in thought, too, and when he didn't say anything right away she nudged him.

"What's up?" Of course, that loser actually looked up.

"Ummm. Ceiling, lights…" he blinked in surprise "I think that's somebody's gum up there?" Michelle followed his gaze and scowled. There was nothing there! She punched him in the arm.

"Jerk." He raised an eyebrow.

"That's a bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?"

"Mmmm." Michelle made that noncommittal humming noise that she made when someone was right but she didn't feel like telling them so. He smiled.

"What are you doing this weekend?" he asked suddenly. Michelle blinked.

"Uh -" she lost her train of thought abruptly as she remembered all over again that her father's funeral _should_ have been that weekend, except that it _wasn't _because they wouldn't release her father's body to be cremated, for some reason. Stupid awful prison system. "Nothing specific, really," she said finally. "Why?" Peter shifted back and forth.

"May has to go out of town for some required work-retreat-conference-thing…" he trailed off.

"You need a place to crash?" she offered when he didn't continue.

"Huh? Oh, no. Actually, May apparently thinks I'm responsible enough now not to burn down the place." Michelle raised an eyebrow.

"Gonna throw a wild party?" she joked. Any other fifteen-year-old would. Well, anyone not named Michelle or Ned, anyway. (Betty, not so much). When she didn't reply, she poked him in the arm. "Peter?"

"Um, the thing is, it's...it's the anniversary of Ben's death this weekend?" It came out like a question and Michelle's stomach dropped. _December 3rd, shit. _She'd totally forgotten. Not that she hadn't had lots of other stuff going on, but still-

"I've never visited his grave by myself before," he continued while Michelle was still mentally beating herself up. "Not that I can't go alone, but well, I was just wondering if maybe…" he trailed off again, unable to finish and staring down at his feet. Michelle let herself look him fully in the face, _really _look. Peter had one of those open-book, expressive faces that always let you know what he was really thinking, and right now he looked the most vulnerable she had seen him in a long time.

"Of _course _I'll go with you," she said, and his eyes snapped to hers, his relief and gratitude palpable. "I'm so glad you asked me," she added more quietly. She really was.

* * *

Michelle had worried, Friday night and into Saturday morning, if it would be totally awkward later that day with Peter. But somehow, it really wasn't.

Maybe that wasn't all that surprising, since Michelle and Peter were comfortable with each other's silence anyway. But it was still a relief.

She met him outside the cemetery mid-afternoon, raising an eyebrow when she saw what he was holding in his hands.

"Is that a cactus?" Peter laughed a little sheepishly.

"Ben wasn't much of a flowers person. 'None of that namby-pamby stuff when I'm gone, May,'" he deepened his voice to imitate Ben's. Michelle laughed, though her heart twisted. Both of them had probably thought that wouldn't be relevant for a long time. But she said,

"That sounds like Ben." They reached the headstone, which was elegant and dignified without being too feminine or overstated. Michelle snickered when she saw the second cactus that was already sitting there.

"Yeah, May brought that when we came yesterday, before she left," Peter said, laughing too.

"I'm glad you guys got to come together somehow," Michelle said, nudging May's cactus over so that Peter could set his down, "Though it's really too bad she couldn't have this day with you."

"Yeah," Peter scuffed one foot in the dirt, then looked up at her so intently her heart skipped a beat, "But I'm really glad you're here." Michelle gulped, at a sudden loss for words - anything she could say in response, like, _I'm glad I'm here, too, _or _I'm here for you, _seemed either inappropriate or sappy or both - and then she jumped backward when she realized she was practically standing right on top of the gravesite.

"No, it's okay," Peter said, reading her thoughts. "No 'namby-pamby' stuff, remember? I'm pretty sure he tried to get May to promise to tap dance on top of his grave every now and again." In response to that, Michelle did a little impromptu jig where she stood. Peter bent his knees and did a cannon-ball-style jump, which made her burst out laughing. Michelle did a cartwheel, which was a terrible idea. Not only had she not attempted one in years, but she almost hit the headstone and _then _she almost hit the cacti, which made Peter lunge for her legs to catch her, and then they were both laughing so hard, literally rolling on the ground laughing, until they couldn't breathe and there were tears in both of their eyes. She and Peter caught each other's eye at the same moment and tried to stop laughing as they abruptly remembered where they actually were. Ben's last wishes aside, it was still a cemetery, where other people should be able to honor their loved ones in a peaceful, respectful atmosphere. Luckily, though, no one else was around.

Once they'd both taken a few deep breaths and calmed down, laying next to each other on the still-snowless ground, Michelle said,

"Tell me more about Ben. If you want to." And Peter did. Michelle had known Ben in the general sense, being Peter's best friend growing up, but she hadn't known that many specific things about him. She learned that Ben's favorite holiday was Halloween, because he loved to hide in the bushes and 'scare those rotten teenagers that would _dare_ toilet-paper my house!'. Apparently his burgers were the best thing ever - actually, Michelle _did _remember those, and they were amazing - but he was a terrible cook when it came to pretty much anything else.

"He was _so _bad, it was almost a gift," Peter said, smiling. "He burned pasta once. Like, not just burned it but _set it on fire_." Michelle laughed.

"That almost takes skill," she said shrewdly, and Peter laughed, too.

"Yeah," he agreed. "He was _terrible._ He always wanted May to cook - not because he felt it was her job or anything, of course, but because May's so good at it." Michelle nodded in agreement. She'd had some excellent meals at the Parkers' house. "His favorite meal was chicken parmesan, but he'd eat anything. Really almost anything, even if May or I had some spectacular cooking fails every now and then, he'd still eat it and tell us how good it was, even when it was awful."

Peter went on for a while, telling her about Ben's time in the military, the treehouse he and Ben had built together (Michelle was still jealous of that thing, years later), how Ben would let Peter sit on his lap and start the car and pretend to be grown-up, all kinds of things. After a while, Peter ran out of steam, and his eyes were glassy. Michelle wasn't sure when they had started holding hands, but she squeezed his. Her heart hurt for Peter. Losing _one _parent was awful enough, but Peter had lost a mother and practically two fathers by age twelve, and it just wasn't fair.

"Does it get easier, missing him?" she asked. Selfishly, she was thinking about her own father and her own grief, now. Peter stared into the distance, considering her question.

"Well...yes and no. It hurts less sharply after a while, yeah. It's not quite as big as it was. But instead, there'll be many smaller moments where I really miss him, when May and I really need him. Like when something breaks down around the house, or when I first had to learn how to tie a tie...or, like, when I'm learning to drive now, that's something that Ben probably would've taught me." Michelle nodded, thoughtful. She had always been daddy's little girl, but it was really helpful to have her mother around for things like her first bra, her first period, boys, that sort of thing, even if it was all really embarrassing sometimes.

They both lay together in silence for a few minutes when Peter said suddenly, "Tell me about your dad." Michelle's stomach jumped and her body flushed hot.

"Ar-are you sure? This is Ben's day, after all," she said finally. She felt Peter nod.

"I'm sure." Michelle gulped, and Peter squeezed her hand gently, reassuringly, feeling how tense she was beside him. She took a deep breath.

"Well, for as awful a cook as Ben was? My dad was really good, remember? Like, _really _good. He'd make these really elaborate three-course meals - he always wanted to go to culinary school, but someday-" Michelle's breath stopped in her chest. Her dad would never get to do that now. She was frozen again, and Peter squeezed her hand once more.

"I _do _remember," he said, rubbing his stomach with his free hand, "Oh, man, his ravioli was, like, the greatest thing ever. And remember that time Ben and May and I came over for dinner and he served mushroom risotto, and May told your mom to let her know if she ever got tired of him?" Michelle laughed, her whole body relaxing. The look on Ben's face had been priceless.

"He would make these really complicated cakes for my birthday, too. The best one was-"

"-the microscope," she and Peter finished together. She was smiling, really smiling, for the first time in ages. "He called me MJ because - my name was Michelle Jones _Jackson_, remember? I had both of my parents last names, and he and my mom always argued - well, not really argued, it was sort of a joke between them at that point - but my dad always said my name was too long for such a little girl. So he called me _MJ Jackson_, and he just thought that was the cleverest thing ever."

She and Peter continued that way for a while, sharing only the good memories of Ben and her dad, until it started getting too cold and dark to stay there any longer. Stretching, she yawned as they got ready to leave. "Do you want to come over, maybe stay the night?" she asked him. She suddenly realized that with May out of town, Peter would be going home to an empty apartment, tonight of all nights, and she didn't want that. He shook his head.

"I'm heading over to Ned's and sleeping over, actually." He grinned mischievously at her. "We're going to have another _Star Wars _marathon, if you're interested."

"_Nooooo._" Peter laughed. Michelle had made it clear that once was enough, and while the original trilogy was pretty great, she wasn't too keen on the others. "I should be getting home." Even if she'd wanted to come, she'd had this time with Peter, and now it would be good for him to have some time with Ned, just vegging out and playing video games. At the cemetery entrance they paused to go their separate ways. To Michelle's surprise, Peter reached out and hugged her.

"Thanks for coming." His voice caught a bit. Michelle nodded, her throat tight.

"I'm really glad I did."

* * *

Later that night, after Michelle got home but before dinner, she paced her room anxiously. Today was the first day she'd felt like herself in a really long time. She felt so much lighter, talking about her dad with Peter. And she had so many other things she needed to talk about, the harder things, but she had no idea where to start, and she didn't want to burden Peter with all of that, either. She paced faster, biting her knuckles and gripping the little white business card in one hand. For the fifth time in as many minutes, she dialed a phone number, and this time she didn't hang up.

"Hello?"

"Uh - hello? I'd like to make an appointment with," she looked at the card again, though she knew the name by now, "Dr. Williams. Dr. Natasha Williams."


End file.
